
X 




BOONE FIGHTING INDIANS 



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713 d- 717 MARKKT STREET. 



DANIEL BOONE 



THE PIONEER OF KENTUCKY. 



§, §l00t:ajjjty. 



BY 



GEORGE CANNING HILL. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1866. 



-14 (o 



Entered accordiag^ to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

GEOEGE CANNING HILL, 

In tiie'Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusette. 



5. ^ • ^ M t <. 



PREFACE 



The author has designed the present series of Biogra- 
phies more particularly for the young. And in pursu- 
ing his original plan along to its termination, he has 
set before himself the following objects, to which he 
invites the reader's attention : 

To furnish from the pages of the world's history a few 
examples of true manhood, lofty purpose, and perse- 
vering effort, such as may be safely held up either for 
the admiration or emulation of the youth of the present 
day; 

To clear away, in his treatment of these subjects, 
whatever mistiness and mustiness may have accumu- 
lated with time about them, presenting to the mental 
vision fresh and living pictures, that shall seem to be 
clothed with naturalness, and energy, and vitality ; 

To offer no less instruction to the minds, than pleasure 
to the imaginations of the many for whom he has taken 
it in hand to write ; 

And, more especially, perhaps, to familiarize the youth 
1- 



VI PREFACE. 

of our day with those striking and manly characters, 
that have long ago made their mark, deep and lasting, 
on the history and fortunes of the American Conti- 
nent. 

The deeds of these men, it is true, are to be found 
abundantly recorded in Histories ; but they lie so 
scattered along their ten thousand pages, and are so 
intermixed with the voluminous records of other mat- 
ters, as to be practically out of the reach of the younger 
portion of readers, and so of the very ones for whom 
this series has been undertaken. These want only 
pictures of actual life ; and, if the author shall, in any 
due degree, succeed even in sketching interesting out- 
linesy he will feel that he is answering the very purpose 
that has long lain unperformed within his heart. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

HIS EARLY DAYS, 9 

CHAPTER II. 

REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA, . • . • 27 

CHAPTER III. 

HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY, .... 43 

CHAPTER IV. 

ALL ALONE, 63 

CHAPTER V. 

TRANSYLVANIA, • . 81 

CHAPTER VI. 

TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS, .... 104 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

BATTLES AND SIEGES, 122 

CHAPTER Vni. 

A PRISONER, 141 

CHAPTER IX. 

A WONDERFUL ESCAPE 160 

CHAPTER X. 

SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH, 175 

CHAPTER XL 

MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS, 192 

CHAPTER XII. 

LAND AND LAND-OWNING, 212 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST, . . . 231 

CHAPTER XIV. 

LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 249 



DANIEL BOONE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

HIS EARLY DAYS. 

LIFE in the woods is a romance from begin- 
ning to end. The mind delights to dwell 
upon the freedom, the beauty, the trials, 
and even the hazards of such a life, and thinks of 
it, in contrast with the set forms and customs of civ- 
ilization, as something so fresh that it raises the 
imagination to a pitch of the most pleasurable 
excitement. 

There are very few boys who have not, at one 
time or another in their lives, felt the secret but 
strong impulse to go to sea, or to play at a game 
of Selkirk solitude in the woods. Daniel Webster 
used to say to his friends when assembled on his 
lawn at Marshfield, in the summer evenings, that 
the two objects in creation which chiefly inspired 
sentiments of grandeur within his breast, Avero the 
stars and the sea ; he might well have added to 



10 DANIEL BOONE. 

these, the forest, than which, in its remote and aw- 
ful solitudes, nothing in all the world can he 
named which so imposes lofty and solemn thoughts 
upon the soul. 

We all love nature so much, even those of us 
who were never nursed upon her bosom. AVe love 
the streams, the lawns, the rocks, the trees, the 
dense masses of foliage, and even the driving snows 
and deluging rains. That love is born with us ; 
and we cannot altogether outroot it, if we would. 
The birds and beasts ; the grove and river ; mountain 
and waterfall ; blue sky and black cloud freighted 
with thunder ; sunsets and sunrisings ; the winds 
that roar and howl themselves hoarse in winter, and 
the balmy breezes that blow up through the open 
windows of the south in summer ; every one of 
these is able to strike a chord of sympathy in the 
human breast, and waken the heart to a living 
ecstasy. 

There have been many men in the world who 
loved the silence and solitudes of nature, but none, 
certainly, who pursued the enjoyments they offer 
with such singleness of heart as the famous Daniel 
Boone, the pioneer of Kentucky. He was a marked 
man from the start. Such true and simple children 
of nature are so rare as to attract a ffreat deal of 



Ills EARLY DAYS. 11 

attention on all sides. Their speech is not the 
speech of the world ; their manners are not those of 
common men ; and their lives are crowded with 
deeds of daring, whose' narration forms the most 
attractive of romances. Old and young delight to 
read of the wonderful encounters with Indians and 
wild beasts ; the narrow escape from the perils of 
flood and forest ; the hardy and prolonged endur- 
ance, and the steady perseverance and resolution. 
These are stories of which the young, especially, 
never tire. They are fresh forever. 

It requires peculiar qualities to make a good 
pioneer. We who enjoy what a heroic ancestry 
won for us by their own sufferings and sacrifices, 
know little, and think less, of the cost at which all 
these things were secured. Some of those noble 
men marched forth to beat down oppression, as it 
sought to draw its bands closer and closer around 
them ; and some silently went out into the wilder- 
ness, resolved to subdue even nature herself to their 
far-reaching purposes. But large as was their com- 
prehension, they could not then take into their vis- 
ion the half of the grand picture which was so soon 
to unroll, like a panorama, before the gaze of an 
astonished world. 

The name of Daniel Boone, as one of the pio- 



12 DAiraiL BOONE. 

neers, has gone around the world. Long ago it was 
celehrated wherever men admired courage, or loved 
to read stories of individual sacrifice and daring. 
Captain Cook had sailed around the globe, bringing 
home with him accounts of men that were known 
scarcely in the popular imagination ; Ledyard trav- 
ersed wild wastes where vegetation never grew, and 
made himself famous for the courage he displayed 
in penetrating to climes that were thought unahle 
to sustain human life ; but Boone set out with calm- 
ness, as if he were obeying a religious inspiration, 
and buried himself forever in the wilderness. It 
required great resolution to do what he did ; and 
yet it seemed to come to him as easily as play to a 
child. 

Lord Byron proclaimed his undying fame in some 
of his noblest verse, which deserves to be incorpor- 
ated with a biographical sketch of the man. It is 
as follows : 



« Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer, 

Who passes for, in life and death, most lucky, 

Of the great names which in our faces stare. 
The General Boone, backwoodsman, of Kentucky, 

Was happiest among mortals anywhere ; 
For, killing nothing but a bear or buck, he 

Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days 

Of his old age, in wilds of deepest maze. 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 13 

" Crime came not near him — she is not the child 
Of solitude ; health shrank not from him — for 

Her home is in the rarely trodden wild, 

Where, if men seek her not, and death be more 

Their choice than life, forgive them, as, be^iled 
By habit, to what their own hearts abhor, 

In cities caged. The present case in point I 

Cite is, that Boone lived hunting up to ninety; 

♦• And what's still stranger, left behind a name 

For which men vainly decimate the throng ; 
Not only famous, but of that good fame, 

"Without which, glory's but a tavern song — 
Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame. 

Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong ; 
An active hermit, even in age the child 
Of nature, or the man of Ross run wild. 

*« 'Tis true he shrank from men even of his nation. 

When they built up into his darling trees, 
He moved some hundred miles off, for a station 

Where there were fewer houses, and more ease. 
The inconvenience of civilization 

Is, that you neither can be pleased, nor please. 
But where he met the individual man, 
He showed himself as kind as mortal can. 

** He was not all alone ; around him grew 

A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, 
Whose young, unwaken'd world was ever new j 

Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace 
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view 

A frown on nature's, or on human face ; 
The free-born forest found and kept them free. 
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 

•• And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they. 
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions ; 
Because their thoughts had never been the prey 
Of care or gain j the green woods were their portions^ 

2 



H DANIEL BOONE. 

No sinking spirits told them they grew grey ; 

No fashion made them apes of her distortions. 
Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 

Though very true, were not yet used for trifles. 

<' Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers, 
And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil ; 

Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers ; 
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil. 

The lust which stings, the splendor which encumbera, 
With the free foresters divide no spoil. 

Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 

Of this unsighing people of the woods." 

It is to be remembered, too, that when Boone 
shouldered his rifle and went with his little family 
into the wilderness, the days of the American Eevo- 
lution were just drawing nigh. Had he listened 
intently, it would seem as if he could have almost 
caught the echoes of the early cannon fired by his 
resisting countrymen, and heard the roll of the drums, 
and the tramp of the ill-clad armies that were muster- 
ing in the field. But as his life chanced to be cast with- 
out the immediate reach of these influences, nothing 
was left him but to follow the direction of his 
own tastes or desires. He loved the mysteries of 
woodcraft; he yearned for the companionship that 
silence alone offered him ; he sighed daily, even at 
the season of early manhood, for the unbroken de- 
lights of . solitude ; and by all these signs had God 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 15 

sent him into the world to be a pioneer. Any other 
life would have been a mistake for him. 

We are all over apt to consider only those men 
the real founders of our nation, who perilled their 
lives or fortunes in the strife of the Kevolution ; but 
we allow ourselves to rest much short of the reality, 
when we do so. A great share of that work was 
done in silence and solitude ; by self-sacrifices that 
were not seen by the eyes of the world — not in the 
smoke and roar of battle, but with patient and re- 
peated efforts — frequently offering scarce a hope of 
final success. The men who lived and labored thus, 
were at least equal heroes with any other. They 
endured as much ; they toiled as much ; they made 
as noble sacrifices for their posterity ; and the results 
that flowed, and still flow, out of their endeavor, are 
no wise behind what has been wrought by the rest, 
either in importance or permanence. 

The true way to look at the claims of the differ- 
ent workers for the inheritance we now enjoy, is to 
regard them, one and all, as engaged in the self- 
same purpose ; to study them as the individuals of 
a fraternity ; to match what one accomplished in one 
place and direction, with what another accomplished 
in an opposite or corresponding one. They labored 
together in a body, shoulder to shoulder, though 



16 DANIEL BOONE. 

perhaps they knew it not at the time, nor even knew 
what great things they were doing. Each one took 
the part which heaven had allotted him, and worked 
it out as far as time and strength permitted. 

And out of the long and brilliant list of patriots 
— whether orators, or warriors, or statesmen, or di- 
vines, whether at work in this field or that — no 
name shines with a purer or steadier lustre than that 
of Daniel Boone. Even for the days in which he 
lived, he was accounted a wonderful being ; and those 
who read or heard of him felt the bewitching influ- 
ence of his very name. No boy ever hung over the 
fictitious narrative of Alexander Selkirk with any 
greater delight and wonder, than did the men and 
women of the days following the Revolution over the 
real story of Boone and his romantic fortunes in the 
great Western wilderness. Stories of his courage 
and fortitude came to the ears of his countrymen on 
the seaboard, like whispering voices out of the path- 
less woods ; and all alike were enchanted. It was so 
new, so fresh, so strange, this life away from the 
reach of civilization ; the imagination loved to go 
out into just such realms as those in which he dwelt, 
and to people them in obedience to its own laws 
alone. 

The Boone family sprang from English soil, and 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 17 

once dwelt in pleasant Devonshire, that spot of 
earth whose rich slopes and emerald pasture-lands are 
the glory of the mother country, and accounted among 
the garden-spots of the globe. The ancestor who 
brought the name to America, was George Boone. 
He came with his bounteous family of nineteen chil- 
dren (nine sons and ten daughters), and settled on 
the broad acres that lay open for his possession in 
Berks County, Pennsylvania. This George Boone, 
it seems, had a great ambition to hold land, and in 
time became the owner of noble tracts, not only in 
the county where he settled, but likewise in the 
adjoining States of Maryland and Virginia. 

England had not land enough for his great needs 
— that is, land that he might, by his own effort and 
industry, acquire. In America there was plenty for 
all, and uncounted acres to spare. It w^as in the 
year 1717, that George Boone came over to this 
country, and at a time when the people of over- 
crowded England began seriously to turn their 
attention to the advantages offered them on this 
unpeopled soil. 

George Boone was, of course, a patriarch, with 

such a long roll of children, and deserves to be held 

in honor as the respected head of so large a family. 

He came out to see the land, and possess it. Having 

2» 



18 DANIEL BOONE. 

exhausted the vocabulary of scripture-titles in nam- 
ing Ins children, as the custom was in those times, 
he gave the odd name of '' Squire " to the one who 
otherwise might have gone without any. This 
Squire Boone, when he came to manhood, married a 
young woman named Morgan, and settled in Bucks 
County, in Pennsylvania. Of course, he was not 
far away from his father. 

He raised up a large family also, as his father 
had done before him. He named his sons Samuel, 
and Israel, and Daniel, and Jonathan, and when he 
came to the seventh and last, he saw no other way 
than to give him his own title — Squire. 

Daniel Boone was born in Bucks County, in the 
year 1735, on the 11th of February, and was conse- 
quently a little younger than Washington, at the time 
of the Revolution. He w^s a boy of a remarkably 
good constitution, which was about the best inheri- 
tance his parents could leave him. At three years 
of age he was removed, with the family, into what is 
now the town of Eeading, Berks County — then, how- 
ever, but a meagre and exposed post on the out- 
skirts of the wilderness. The Indians threatened 
the peace of the settlement at all hours. It was not 
safe to go out of the reach of the dwelling, unless 
precautions were taken against sudden attacks from 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 10 

the forest natives. Ambushes were likely to be 
sprung upon the settlers on every side. 

It was in a school of danger like this that the boy, 
then scarcely more than an infant, received his 
first lessons in life; and it may be believed they 
were rugged and lasting ones. Here on the edge of 
the trackless forest, his pliant mind was impressed 
with those images of nature, and those pictures 
of the pleasures of solitude, which are very apt to be 
indelible. He played about the far-off settlement, 
and gazed into the scowling wilderness with feelings 
that, during all his subsequent life, he labored to 
make real and true. 

There he learned all about the tricks and traits of 
the Indians. The talk was chiefly upon them and 
their wily habits. He learned the dangers of the 
life his parents led, and was, at the same time, 
taught to love perfect simplicity. He was taught, 
too, that peacefulness brought the most happiness, 
agreeably to the views of his parents and those 
around him. 

During his seclusion in the woods, it is not to be 
supposed that he enjoyed quite as many privileges 
as young lads do in these days, especially in the way 
of schooling. His education was very limited 
and meagre. Schooling did not mean then as much 



20 DANIEL BOONE. 

as it does now. Then, it was but a hard chance in- 
deed. The books were few, and teachers were rare. 
Little more than the rudiments were taught, and 
taught very hastily at that. The scholars did not 
assemble in fine buildings, and seat themselves at 
handsome desks, as they do now ; but were compel- 
led to huddle together as best they could in close 
and ill-lighted log cabins, the rudest structures that 
can be conceived. 

The sturdy men of those times were educated in a 
rough school. It was almost a necessity that they 
should be. They knew much less of books than 
they did of life. They stammered over their spel- 
ling, perhaps, but made it up in their action. Polish 
was not much wanted then, but rather ruggedness 
and strength. 

We can, in imagination, look into one of these 
log huts on the Pennsylvania frontier, now, and see 
the little lad Boone, busy over his tasks. Simple 
enough they were, yet no doubt as difficult for him 
to master as the incomparably tougher ones that are 
set before the boys of the present day. We can be- 
hold him gazing intently out through the open 
window, which, in fact, is no more than a square 
hole in the side of the cabin, and roaming, in 
thought, among the dense and dark trees, all among 



mS EARLY DAYS. 21 

the mysterious shadows, or into and out of the 
recesses, that hide nowhere as they can in the forest. 
He, no douht, sat, as many an impatient schoolboy 
has sat on his bench since, and dreamed of what was 
just beyond his reach outside — of butterflies, and 
green grass, and running across meadows, with no 
teacher to watch them, and freedom from restraint 
of every character. He would have been very dif- 
ferent from other boys if he had not done so. 

Of course, he was glad to get through the routine 
of school, and have it done with forever. The day 
of his release from that unwilling service, he consid- 
ered as the most to be desired of any in his life. 
He learned to read, to write, and to cipher ; these 
were all. And it cannot be asserted that he was 
anything beyond perfection in any of these. 
He did not pretend to write with more accuracy 
or elegance than the other boys of his time. Nor 
were his exploits in the way of spelling very much 
to be boasted of He was a good reader, no doubt, 
as those things then went. And perhaps when we 
have said this much about the early schooling of 
Daniel Boone, we have said all. 

As his life was to be in the woods, he looked at 
no education except that which would give him skill 
and advantage there. The books could have taught 



22 DANIEL BOONE. 

him not the first syllable of the sort of learning he 
most wanted. That he could better acquire of the In- 
dians, of the elements, of the open day, and the mys- 
terious night, of the very animals that made their 
abode in the wilderness. The seasons themselves 
became his instructors. Nature was a volume 
always open to him ; and he studied it with eager- 
ness and devotion. 

The forest, too, was thought to be the scene of many 
and many a contest between the white man and 
the Indian. Hence the character of the savage was 
studied with the greatest care and patience. If 
the woods were indeed his special hunting-ground, 
and it was not permitted the white man to roam 
over them also, it would not be a great while before 
the reason for the latter's exclusion was better under- 
stood. And in order to meet the savage on an 
equal footing, it was necessary for the former to 
understand his nature at every crook and turn. 

Nobody could tell, easier than the Indian, the 
paths that conducted them through tlie tangled 
forest mazes. He was an expert in arts like this. 
And it was exactly such as this that the frontier 
settler had to learn of him, enemy as he was, in 
order to be anywhere near his equal. How to make 
his escape in time of imminent danger, was a prob* 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 23 

lem which it required a good deal of study and 
skillful practise to solve. How to match his sav- 
age rival in the thousand arts and dissimulations 
that he was so ready to practise, was quite enough 
to occupy all his time and thought. 

Young Boone grew up in the midst of circum- 
stances and influences like these. Whatever else he 
did not learn, he certainly did learn the most last- 
ing lessons of self-reliance. Here was he strong ; 
and here was his strength always to lie. He felt 
the peculiar glory there was in trusting to himself, 
in relying on his own exertions. No school could 
have been a better one, either, to teach him how to 
make the most of what means lay around him; 
how to keep himself always on his feet ; how to 
extricate himself from any kind of difficulties that 
threatened to hem him in ; and how to perform 
the most with the fewest means, and under the 
greatest discouragements. 

Of course he learned to use the ffun as soon as 
he had the strength to carry it about with him. 
He became an expert marksman very early. Sharp 
shooting, in fact, was necessary almost to his exist- 
ence ; and if not so much so at the time, it certainly 
became so in more than a single instance after- 
wards. As he grew up nearer to the limit of man- 



24 DANIEL BOONE. 

hood, his love of hunting and solitude became more 
and more noticeable. He would be off alone in the 
woods, with nothing but his gun for company, all 
through the day. Many a story is told of his won- 
derful feats, such as the number of animals he 
brought down with his unerring bullet, or the fierce 
and finally successful encounters he was wont to 
have with the forest denizens. The whole settle- 
ment looked upon him with pride, if not with hope ; 
for they saw in him those shining qualities that 
give lasting fame to the frontiersman and pioneer. 

Having acquired the fame of a hunter, it was 
natural enough that he should think of no other 
occupation in life. So he soon began to grow rest- 
less under the restraints of home, and finally went 
out from beneath his father's roof and built a little 
hut in the forest, where he played the hermit and 
woodsman to his heart's content. The wild beasts 
roamed all around him by day, and their bowlings 
made a dismal concert for him at night. He was 
alone ; yet the solitude never became oppressive to 
him. He had yearned for just such a life since he 
began to estimate what life was worth. 

The walls of his hut were hung around with 
skins of animals, trophies of his skill and daring. 
He stood in the door of his rude cabin of logs, and 



HIS EARLY DAYS. 25 

contemplated the forest, with its profound silence 
and gloom, with a pleasure that none could under- 
stand. In the untrodden depths of that wilderness 
he tried, no doubt, to find his own future ; which, 
even then, he felt was as full of mazy windings 
and dark recesses, as the forest itself. He tried, in 
short, to taste the life he so much longed for, in 
advance of its coming ; he sought to make his fan- 
cies real as fast as he could, impatient that time did 
not untie the pack at its back a little faster. 
3 



26 



CHAPTEE II. 

REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 

8QUIEE Boone, the father of Daniel, made up his 
mind after a time to remove with his family 
to a tract in North Carolina. He had been 
off on a visit among his friends in Maryland ; and 
it was while there, that he first heard the alluring 
stories of the land in North Carolina, which made 
him uneasy in remaining longer where he was. He 
remembered, too, the large family on his hands, 
and how necessary it was to make provision in the 
future for them. He must have land enough to 
settle all his boys upon around him, and they would 
very soon be men. In Pennsylvania, he had a fear 
that ere long he would be crowded ; but in North 
Carolina the land w^as taken up by fe^ver settlers, 
and he thought he could more easily secure what he 
wanted. 

Daniel was no doubt glad to go. He had grown 
familiar with all the scenes about his Pennsylvania 
home, and would be delighted to start off and try 
nature in another region. This change of location, 
too, taking him as it did into still more remote soli- 



REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 27 

tudes, was just the school for the work he had yet 
to do. The boy had now reached the age of eighteen 
years, almost manhood ; but he was the fresh child 
of nature still. 

After the usual busy preparations, the family set 
out from Reading on their long and lonely journey, 
through Maryland and Virginia, for North Carolina. 
It was a sad scene, the parting with the friends and 
neighbors, those with whom the Boones had shared a 
common danger in the wilderness. They felt that 
they were cutting loose from all they held dear in 
life, and were going forth again, as it were, to open 
a path for themselves in the world. We can see that 
little band of a single family starting off into the 
wilderness ; the father walking now at the head of 
the line, and now in the rear, keeping watch against 
surprises, and overseeing the details of the march ; 
the mother and her younger children safely stowed 
in the tented wagon, whose snow-white top showed 
far off as it receded in the depths of the forest ; young 
Daniel, with his rifle across his shoulder — tall, 
straight and manly in his appearance, noting the 
signs of the season everywhere around him, with an 
eye awake to any enemy that might be near, and 
wondering and dreaming, perhaps, of his untried 
future. 



28 DANIEL BOONE. 

Little is known, however, of the particulars of that 
most important journey. If its details could all be 
told, they would form a chapter that every man, 
woman, and child in America would be eager to 
read. But unfortunately the story is not preserved ; 
and we of this day are left to imagine what it really 
was. We know at least that it was crowded with 
trials and deprivations, and that even in the brave 
heart of the father there were moments when doubt 
and fear had their way. Yet he pushed on, and 
finally reached in safety the promised land. 

The first thing he did was to select a spot near a 
stream. This river was called the South Yadkin. 
It rises in the northwestern part of North Carolina, 
in the mountain country, runs across the State in a 
southeasterly course, thence through a corner of 
South Carolina, and pours itself into the Atlantic 
above the mouth of the Santee. When he settled 
down near this river, it was the year 1753 ; a little 
more than a century ago. 

Here young Daniel Boone lived with his father's 
family, and here he arrived at full manhood. His 
life differed not much from that which he led in 
Pennsylvania. He practised with his rifle ; he made 
constant excursions all around the family settlement ; 
he increased his capacity for self-reliance ; he con tin- 



EEMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 29 

ually tried his courage ; he learned more minutely 
than ever the silent laws of forest life, and what a 
close relation they had to his fortunes and his 
nature. 

Ahout this time, too, great events were transpiring 
in the world, and grander ones were preparing. The 
French and English were at war with each other, and 
the contest was transferred to this continent, where 
it was waged with terrific fury. It was along through 
these years that Israel Putnam was getting his valu- 
able experience as a soldier in the neighborhood of 
Lake George, fighting bravely against the French 
and Indians. Washington, too, was schooling under 
Braddock in the Western wilderness, having already 
acquired the quick eye and the firm foot, in his per- 
ilous enterprises as a surveyor in the depths of the 
forest. But the war was not felt as far as among 
the mountains in the neighborhood of the South 
Yadkin. There the few settlers dwelt in peace, 
scarcely touched by the wave of battle that broke 
and died before its roar sounded in their ears. 

Peaceful and quiet was the life of the young 
pioneer, himself ignorant of what the future had in 
store. He w^as, wdth his father, a plain and hard- 
working farmer, helping the best he could to clear 
the land and get it ready for cultivation. This la- 
3* 



30 DANIEL BOONE. 

bor he relieved with hunting, losing none of the skill 
he had already acquired with the rifle. In this 
double capacity of farmer and hunter, the years wore 
noiselessly away. The country about him began to 
fill up, from time to time, with new settlers. Families 
came from a long distance to occupy the land which 
had so much promise for them. The forests began 
to melt before the invading axe, that heralds the 
march of civilization. Settlers' cabins were to be 
seen here and there, over the wide landscape. The 
crack of the hunter's rifle was to be heard more fre- 
quently in all directions. Farms were opening to 
the light of day, and beginning to bless their owners 
with the earth's bounteous increase. 

Among the families that came and settled near 
the Yadkin, and in the immediate neighborhood of 
the Boones, was one by the name of Bryan ; a name 
at this day held in honor in the State of North 
Carolina. The Boones and the Bryans were not 
long in finding the secret pleasures that belong to 
friendship and good neighborhood. Like many 
other families that share the burdens of distance 
and solitude, they soon became intimate. Among 
the Bryans was a young girl, a daughter, named 
Rebecca; and for her young Daniel Boone soon 



REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 31 

found he felt an ardent attachment. It was, in fact, 
the first dawning of love. 

He was fonder of the forest, he had thought 
hitherto, than of any human society, and he knew 
that this love was growing stronger in his heart 
every day, too ; yet there was a stronger attraction 
about this young girl, Rebecca Bryan, than he 
could find even in the charms of forest life. He 
knew not what it was. He had never been in love 
before, and, in fact, had never thought of such a 
thing. But now, of a sudden, he discovered that 
all his life had taken a new coloring, and his hopes 
and feelings were fast centering on an object, whose 
power to attract one like himself he had never 
dreamed of. It is a very common thing for a young 
man to fall in love ; and Daniel Boone, at his time 
of life, was no exception to the great rule. 

A pretty story is told of an accident which came 
very near occurring, while he was paying attention 
to young Eebecca Bryan ; but whether it is quite true 
or not, is a matter of some doubt. It is said that, 
while out hunting deer one day, he observed a pair 
of bright eyes looking steadily at him from out the 
thicket. He raised his rifle to his shoulder, and was 
on the point of firing, when a timely movement on 
the part of the owner of the eyes disclosed to him 



32 DANIEL BOONE. 

the fact that he had come very near shooting his 
intended bride ! 

Soon after the acquaintance between these two 
young persons ripened into intimacy and love, they 
were married. This was Daniel Boone's first real 
step out into the world ; for now he left the roof of 
his father, and set up housekeeping for himself. 
Now he was an independent man, the head of a 
family of his own. He had his own living to earn ; 
he must now hunt and farm for the support of her 
whom he had taken to w^ife; they both had left 
father and mother, sister and brother, and gone off 
to dwell apart by themselves. Of course, it was a 
sudden turn in the fortunes of both of them. 

Before he married, however, he tramped a long 
distance up the valley of the Yadkin River, desirous 
of finding a spot on which to locate. He wanted to 
be off again. He did not like the settlements any 
better than he used to in Pennsylvania. Solitude 
was still his strong desire. The valley led away in 
the direction of the mountains, where the forest still 
stood untamed. The nearer he got to them, the 
more serene became his heart. There he felt sure he 
should find the peace for which he yearned. 

At length he pitched upon a proper place, and 
erected his little cabin. It was a rude structure, all 



^'^'t^M^^ .. 




BOONE AT THE DOOR OF HIS LOG HUT IN THE FOREST. 



BEMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 33 

of logs. Into this cabin he was to take his bride. 
The frowning shadows from the mountains beyond, 
lay across his very door. He could sit and study 
the play of the lightnings along their sides at even- 
ing, yet feel perfectly secure in his lonely home. 
The wild beasts set up their nightly cries around 
him. The little stream flowed by as silently as if 
it were dreaming, and did not wish to have its 
dreams broken. Dense and dark was the forest, on 
the right hand and the left. The morning sun 
came and filled the valley with its ever new glory ; 
and at evening its golden arrows lodged in the tops 
of the giant trees, and its dying play gave new 
features to the landscape. No one came in at the 
door all day; and at night the solitude remained 
still unbroken. They feared the intrusion of no 
stranger. They were in a world of their own. 
Sky and trees hemmed them in, and were welcome 
boundaries to these children of nature. He knew 
how to read the secrets of the forest, for in the forest 
he had obtained all his schooling ; and no student 
of books and black-letter was ever more wrapped in 
the delights of his avocation. Upon no human face 
did his eyes rest during all this time, save the face 
of his youthful wife; their sympathies must have 
been made a thousand times more quick and deep, 



34 DANIEL BOONE. 

by the steady pressure of the surrounding silence and 
solitude. He found companionship in the animals, 
whose habits he was obliged to study ; in the count- 
less varieties of life, animate and inanimate, around 
him ; in the song of wild birds by day, and the 
howl of bears, and wolves, and panthers, by night ; 
in the ripple of streams, the blowing of winds, the 
roar of the lofty tree-tops ; in grass, and flowers, 
and sunshine ; in clouds, and rain, and storms ; and, 
beyond all these, in the fathomless deep of his own 
soul. 

We have no detailed account of his way of life, 
after he took his young wife off into the wilderness 
to clear up a little settlement of their own. It must 
have been monotonous to most persons, though to 
one whose whole being had been tutored only in the 
solitudes of nature, it was, undoubtedly, full of 
variety and freshness, and new daily experiences. 
So great a difference is there in the modes of educa- 
tion. If we had the facts of this part of his life to 
present, no romance of woodcraft could offer rarer 
attractions to the youthful or the mature reader ; 
but imagination is left to supply for itself the lack 
which all alike deplore. It is unfortunate that the 
best and bravest men are at such slight pains to hand 
along the story of their career ; yet, like the real 



REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 35 

children of nature they are, they think no more of 
being brave and great, than others do of being cow- 
ardly and mean ; and it is a prominent trait of 
nobility, that it is ever forgetful of self, and satis- 
fied -with merely doing its work. 

His cabin was the only one, for a long time, in 
that part of the Yadkin Valley. His firelight blazed 
in the eye of no other man's firelight. No door 
faced his door. No man's possessions joined his 
possessions. He lived a forest monarch, brave, self- 
reliant, and strong. But time, with its changes, 
was all ready to crowd him along. Hitherto he 
had only been in training for the future in which 
he was to play so large a part ; now he was to be 
forced to step forward into that future, and, by his 
very courage in taking that step, to show that his 
was the spirit which the coming time chiefly needed. 
Other settlers came straggling along, with their 
families, into his neighborhood, invited by the rich- 
ness of the lands and the beauty of the scenery. 
Soon he saw himself surrounded, and the smokes 
of other cabins going up in all directions about 
that of his own. He felt himself hedged in. It 
did not suit him to know that somebody's lands 
adjoined his lands, or that he was not free to hunt 
and farm as far as his eye could reach and his feet 



36 DANIEL BOONE. 

carry him. The same oppression that his father 
had felt before him, when he made up his mind to 
remove from Pennsylvania, determined him to leave 
the place to which so many others were now flock- 
ing. Others might be thankful for human society ; 
young Boone was not : the hermit nature was even 
now fully developed within him. 

This feature, in fact, was the great peculiarity of 
Daniel Boone — his dislike of society, and his 
passion for utter solitude. He felt himself growing 
stronger in proportion to the growth of this love of 
loneliness. Other men seek to prop themselves up 
by surrounding themselves with social advantages ; 
they swim with the aid of corks and floats : but 
Boone at an early age found out a better secret than 
this ; he learned that power was born out of one^s 
own self, and that if a man was first his own com- 
plete master, he might easily claim like mastery 
over others around him. And Boone was riffht. 
His views would tend to make men simple and true 
in their relations to others, and compel them to 
begin and end all their efforts with themselves. As 
it is now, the strife is to achieve conquests over 
others, before we practise anything of the kind 
upon ourselves. 

The pleasant Yadkin banks were to be deserted 



EEMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 37 

at length, and new projects of adventure to be 
undertaken. Henceforward there was to be no rest 
by the way ; it was to be a history of unceasing 
toil, and travel, and trial, and solitude. He only 
felt the desire for solitude controlling him ; he did 
not know to what vast results it was going to lead. 
There was a wild and unexplored land beyond the 
western mountains, of which he had heard strange 
stories, but upon which no white man had as yet 
ventured to set foot. Thither his thoughts directed 
themselves. Somewhere within that unknown ex- 
panse of territory, he secretly felt that he could 
erect his cabin, and live forever undisturbed. There 
were highly colored reports abroad respecting the 
scenery of that virgin country ; the mountains were 
matchless for grandeur; the plains stretched out 
before the eye like magnificent pictures ; the streams 
were gigantic and lordly, draining thousands of 
square miles in their winding courses ; and the 
forests stood out against the sky, darker and denser 
than any even of those lofty growths with which 
the common mind of the pioneer was perfectly 
familiar. Columbus did not feel his great imagina- 
tion more profoundly excited with what he had 
heard of the passage westward around the world, 
than did Daniel Boone his, with these wonderful 
4 



38 DANIEL BOONE. 

tales of the vast land that lay beyond the moun- 
tains. 

There were stories, to be sure, of Indians, whose 
keen eyes pierced the gloom, and whose sagacious 
feet threaded the depths of those western forests, 
and it was well enough known that these savages 
were blood-thirsty and merciless in their nature ; yet 
Boone felt the rising of no fear even at the recital 
of these. His fertile imagination, and his passionate 
love of solitude readily overcame all that timidity 
which would have asserted its control in other men ; 
and the thickening dangers, in fact, only excited him 
the more to go forth and achieve their mastery. 
And the very fact that this region was all unde- 
scribed — that no white man had set his foot within 
its borders, that the soil was virgin, the rivers 
unexplored, the natives unknown, the beasts, and 
birds, and fishes, all ready for the conquest of him 
who had the courage and perseverance to undertake 
it — gave increased zest to his dreamings on the sub- 
ject, and helped to fix and fire his determination. 
He lived quietly where he then was, and revolved it 
all in his mind. Being such a complete solitary, he 
communicated his plans to few or none around him. 
Each day saw his purpose, at first dim and indistinct, 
fast taking form and acquiring strength. When he 



EEMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLmA. 39 

worked on his little cultivated patch, and when he 
tramped in the woods with his trusty rifle, he was 
tliinking, thinking, thinking, and of nothing but this 
plan to plunge into the great wilderness of the West, 
and make his home in the very heart and secrets of 
nature. 

There were other men, too, about this time, who 
had given the same subject more or less attention ; 
but they did not go about it as Boone did. They 
believed the wilderness would certainly come to be 
explored and settled in time, but by no means in 
their day ; it was too great an undertaking, espec- 
ially by a mere handfuU of raw frontier settlers, far 
removed from the assistance and sympathy of the 
population along the Atlantic seaboard. No doubt 
they felt as well assured as Boone did that the moun- 
tains to the west would in time be crossed by the 
lengthening lines of hardy emigrants ; but they 
were only dreaming of somebody else coming for- 
ward in the future to accomplish this, while he was 
thinking of doing it himself. There was, however, 
this difference in their plans : they were calculating 
for the advancement of civilization, while he was in 
the silent search of solitude for himself. It was 
well, even as it was ; for without this very passion 
for solitude, he would have had no adequate motive 



40 PANIEL BOONE. 

to spur liim on. The reader can see for himself 
already, that while the other settlers thought only 
of the general advantage in the future, he was 
intently brooding over his own ; and it is only 
through the operation of these strong and personal 
motives that mankind has been led along to its 
present condition. 

What the conquest of the Kocky Mountains has 
been in our own day, the victorious passage of the 
Cumberland Kidge was to the bold pioneers of the 
days of Daniel Boone. We have the aid of science, 
of government, and of numbers ; and if one wave of 
progress is not able to surmount such barriers, 
another is all ready to follow it, that will. There 
was no help of this sort, however, in those ruder 
times. Then each man had to rely on his muscular 
arm, his quick eye, and his unerring aim ; if he fell, 
there was not much hope that others, coming from 
the settlements that could illy spare them, would 
very soon follow him ; and the tales of peril would, 
of course, become magnified many fold. 

None of the professed hunters of that day were 
before Boone for courage and daring. He had pen- 
etrated farther into the forest than any one else. 
He w.as well aware how little it required to sustain 
human life, away from the haunts of men. In the 



REMOVAL TO NORTH CAROLINA. 41 

untrodden forests he knew that he could do without 
house or shelter, and that his own skill was ahle to 
secure him his livelihood. But the greatest object 
of his fears was the savage. The Carolina settlers 
had some personal experience with the habits of the 
red man, who had crept stealthily to the borders of 
their settlements, and put all things in sudden 
jeopardy. Boone had no reason to suppose there 
was less cause to fear him on his own ground than in 
the neighborhood of the white settlements. The 
roving Cherokees left dark legends wherever their 
feet had trod. To push into the wilderness in the 
face of such savages, swarming on every hand, would 
seem to be the utmost confession of hardihood itself. 
We may never know of the many bloody encoun- 
ters between the white and the red men, just before 
the great hunter of Kentucky shouldered his rifle 
and went into the deep solitudes ; but imagination 
pictures to us many a cruel encounter, and many a 
fiendish surprise of innocent men and women, the 
record of which sleeps in the same silence with the 
names of the Indian chieftains themselves. 

Judge Marshall says of the country beyond the 
Cumberland Mountains, that at that time (in 1767), 
" It appeared to the dusky view of the generality of 

the people of Virginia, almost as obscure and doubt- 

40 



42 DANIEL BOONE. 

ful as America itself to the people of Europe before 
the voyage of Columbus. A country there was ; of 
this none could doubt who thought at all ; but 
whether land or water, mountain or plain, fertility 
or barrenness, preponderated ; whether inhabited by 
men or beasts, or both, or neither, they knew not. 
If inhabited by men, they were supposed to be 
Indians ; for such had always infested the frontiers. 
And this had been a powerful reason for not explor- 
ing the region west of the great mountain which 
concealed Kentucky from their sight. 

Such was the land that was to be possessed. The 
man whose mission it was to go out and take posses- 
sion, working even greater things than he knew at 
the time, was Daniel Boone. We will proceed now 
to give a clue to his motives in changing his resi- 
dence still again, and to portray the character whose 
simple strength was sufficient for the grand move- 
ment of which he was the pioneer. 



43 



CHAPTER III. 

HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 

WHEN white settlers began to increase on 
the banks of the Yadkin, Boone seri- 
ously thought it was time to be off. He 
had no idea of going as the leader of others, or of 
handing down his name to future generations. His 
highest desire was to be rid of the sight or sound of 
a settlement. Yet although his motive was so 
wholly centered in self, the elements of his nature 
were exactly those required for the important work 
of a pioneer. He had taught himself, from his ear- 
liest youth, the valuable lesson of self-reliance. His 
necessities were few and readily supplied ; his 
habits were simple in the extreme ; while he was 
at heart as gentle as a girl, he concealed beneath 
that gentleness the courage and boldness of a lion ; 
he would avoid danger as long as he could ; but 
when no other course was left him, he could stand 
by and defend as long as any man living. He was 
peaceful, therefore, and loved solitude more than 
society. And when he saw the society he cared not 
for creeping slowly up to the very verge of the 



44 DANIEL BOONB. 

untamed wilderness, he thought it was high time to 
take his departure. 

It is important for the reader to remember that 
none of the common vices of the pioneer found 
lodgement in the pure and simple nature of Daniel 
Boone. He was as conscientious and true, as he 
was brave and bold ; and he probably loved the 
solitudes of nature the more, because he disliked con- 
tact w^ith the vices and follies of men. Boone was no 
common pioneer. He was the man for the time, 
and his nature had been kept sw^eet and clean for 
the work to which he was called. There is no influ- 
ence like that of solitude to protect the heart from 
contamination. He shunned society because he was 
not satisfied with what it gave him. It was super- 
ficial and shallow, while he was sincere and true. 
And yet no man was of a more kind and peaceful 
disposition, or better inclined to do generous deeds 
for others. But the artificialities of social life had 
no attraction for him. He saw that it was expected 
of all who belonged to the social brotherhood, to 
adopt certain forms that others were to set up, and 
copy certain customs and habits that others were 
to establish for him ; and in his view there was no 
good reason why he was not quite as well able to 
lay down rules for himself, as other men were to do 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 45 

sc for him. It would be ridiculous to think of mak- 
ino' a man of fashion out of a man like Daniel 
Boone. His was too large and simple a nature to 
be strapped and cramped within the limits of any 
such strait-jacket as that. Hence he put all such 
trifling at once behind his back. 

There were other things that helped his deter- 
mination to leave the frontier and plunge into the 
wilderness. The officers of the colonial govern- 
ment were altogether too aristocratic in their modes 
of living, and introduced habits among the thrifty 
and well-to-do people of the settlement, such as a sim- 
ple nature like that of Boone could not patiently en- 
dure. Grievances also presented themselves, proceed- 
ing from the exactions of these officers, who resolved 
to use their power over the colonists to increase their 
own personal wealth ; and hence taxes, and fees, 
and costs accumulated so fast that sagacious minds 
began to grow timid, and to wonder where such 
practises would end. To escape these things, Boone 
determined to turn his back on the colony. He 
was not ready to be bled for the enrichment of law- 
yers and crown officers of every grade — men who 
had come among the colonists for the sole purpose 
of making or mending their fortunes. If his little 
property was to be eaten up, he would rather it 



46 DANIEL BOONE. 

should take the risk of instantaneous destruction at 
the hands of the savage, than be filtered away, little 
by little, through the nests of sieves held for it by 
tax collectors, officers of the law, grabbing specu- 
lators, and men of the like character. 

The people petitioned the crown for protection 
against these rapidly multiplying acts of injustice ; 
and their petitions resulted only in the acts becom- 
ing multiplied. All through the thirteen American 
Colonies, at that time, the discussions were warm 
and frequent whether the mother country had the 
right to tax at all, unless representation went along 
with taxation ; and in North Carolina the inhabit- 
ants were as much aroused to repel the injustice 
from which they suffered, as in any other colony. 
There the law officers made a point to openly trade 
on their position, and not only exacted what the law 
allowed, but enough beside to increase their own 
wealth very sensibly. 

It chanced that right at this juncture of circum- 
stances, and while Boone was making up his 
mind what direction he should take in his next 
move, a hunter, named John Finley, returned from 
an excursion to the far westward, bringing back 
the wild and romantic stories of the country that 
fired more hearts and imaginations than those 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 47 

merely of Daniel Boone. These things always 
occur just as they are intended to occur, and there- 
fore produce their proper effect. Finley's story 
failed not of its influence over the mind of Boone. 
It appears that the former was one of a party of 
hunters that had roamed away as far as the banks 
of the Kentucky Eiver, in quest of game. They 
met with parties of Indians in their wide rambles ; 
but the latter consented to let them pass undis- 
turbed, little thinking of the conflicts that were yet 
to rage between the two races, or of the vast 
power that still slumbered, undeveloped, in the 
breast of the white man. The savages thought 
this little party not of consequence enough to inter- 
fere with, but contented themselves with wondering 
at their appearance, and silently pitying their 
numerical weakness. So this handful of hunters 
made their way undisturbed through a part of the 
present State of Tennessee, noting the strange coun- 
try that unrolled its vastness to their vision, and 
made dumb with astonishment at the grandeur of 
the forests, the plains, and the rivers. Game was 
to be had in profuse abundance, and of the best 
sorts. There was unbounded freedom for their feet 
on every side. Here they might roam for the rest 
of their lives, and suffer no interruption from the 



48 DANIEL BOONE. 

selfish wliite man. It was the first party of adven- 
turers who had ever crossed the barriers of the 
Cumherland range, and explored the richness of 
the virgin lands of Kentucky. Nothing like tangi- 
ble results grew out of it ; yet its direct influence 
on the mind of Daniel Boone showed that it was 
by no means trifling or valueless. 

There had been a party of explorers in that dis- 
tant country (so rumor said), as long as twenty 
years before, a Dr. Walker having headed a party 
that traversed the northeastern portion of Kentucky ; 
but nothing came of the undertaking, and, indeed, 
it cannot be stated with distinctness even on what 
year the expedition was made. Of the party under 
Finley, however, Gov. Morehead, of Kentucky, 
observed in a public address, " That they passed 
over the Cumberland, and through the intermediate 
country to' the Kentucky Eiver, and penetrated the 
beautiful Valley of the Elkhorn, there are no suffi- 
cient reasons to doubt. It is enough, however, to 
embalm their memory in our breasts, and to connect 
their names with the imperishable memorials of our 
early history, that they were the first adventurers 
that plunged into the dark and enchanted wilderness 
of Kentucky ; that of all their cotemporaries, they 
saw her first ; and saw her in the pride of her virgin 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 49 

beauty, at the dawn of summer, in the fullness of 
her vegetation, her soil instinct with fertility, covered 
with the most luxuriant verdure, the air perfumed 
with the fragrance of flowers, and her tall forests 
looming in all their primeval magnificence. How 
long Finley lived, or where he died^ the silence of 
history does not enable us to know. That his 
remains are now mingled with the soil that he dis- 
covered, there is some reason to hope, for he con- 
ducted Boone to Kentucky in 1769, and there the 
curtain drops upon him forever." 

We said that Finley 's accounts of the new land to 
whose grand secrets he had penetrated, fired the 
imagination and fixed the purpose of Boone. The 
stories he and his party brought back with them 
were passed around from one cabin to another, and 
became the common property of the frontier settle- 
ments. The population, already oppressed by the 
government of the mother country, longed to see the 
land where tax gatherers and officers of the crown 
could not come to find them. Many of them thought 
it would be perfect freedom to be out of the reach of 
the grasp of any human law whatever, believing 
there was better justice and more security in a state 
of nature. They desired to roam without obstruction 
wherever they might feel inclined. They were men 
5 



50 DANIEL BOONE. 

with big hearts and large powers of imagination in 
those days, and they warmed at the thought of per- 
fect freedom for their feet in the wilderness. Among 
those who caught these tales of forest life and license 
to roam everywhere, none took them more to heart 
than did Boone. It appears that in 1764 he had 
entered within the present limits of Kentucky, hav- 
ing been sent on a tour of inspection to a branch of 
the Cumberland River by a company of land specu- 
lators, and at that time he had made the best possi- 
ble use of his opportunities. The speculation 
amounted to nothing, but the man was thus getting 
his training for the work he was to do in the future. 
He had a taste of the delights of independent explo- 
ration, and it only whetted his appetite for more ; 
and at the right moment came the stories of Finley 
and his party of adventurers, exciting his mind to 
just that pitch which would be likely to result in 
decisive action. 

It was months, however, before these tales of the 
explorers produced their proper effect. A new party 
was a long time in forming. One cause delayed 
one, and another cause another. Some disliked to 
leave the homes they had already risked so much to 
secure ; some trusted there would be a change in the 
administration of justice at some not distant day, and 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 51 

thus the prime motive for a change of location would 
be wanting ; all knew something of the perils from 
the savages that environed them on every side, and 
with good reason believed that the news of the 
approach of Finley's party would spread from one 
tribe to another with amazing rapidity ; a second 
visit, therefore, might not be as happy and peaceful 
in its consequences as was the first. The affair of 
another company of explorers was talked of, how- 
ever, without interruption, and all the points likely 
to influence the formation and purposes of such a 
company were discussed with thoroughness. 

At last the men were found. There were only 
six of them all told — six men who thus carried the 
fortunes of a continent in their hearts ! Their 
names deserve to be remembered of the latest genera- 
tions. They were — Daniel Boone, John Finley, 
John Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Monay, and Wil- 
liam Cool. The reader will see that Boone's name 
headed the list, showing the perfect confidence the 
rest felt in his courage and judgment. It is said he 
was the last, after all, to come into the plan ! It 
shows that, with all his courage, he did nothing 
rashly. 

When this resolution was formed, Boone had quite 
a little family around him. His sons were growing 



52 DANIEL BOONE. 






up, and had "become old enough now to he of much 
assistance to their father. His wife entered sym- 
pathetically into the projects of her hushand. She 
aided him in putting his plans on foot. A true wife 
possesses more power to help her husband's aims and 
course in life than she herself knows. She agreed 
that, as long as it was his wish, he should push out 
into the wilderness, and her womanly heart was 
ready to sustain him in his resolution. So the 
party got ready to start. 

There was one John Filson, who attempted to 
write the history of this expedition of Boone and his 
party, and represented that he took down Boone's 
own words ; hut his style is so inflated and grandil- 
oquent, that it can he read with no pleasure. The 
title of the hook was : " The Adventures of Col. 
Daniel Boone, formerly a Hunter, containing a Nar- 
rative of the Wars of Kentucky.'' It was said to 
have deen dictated by Boone himself, and taken down 
by Filson from his lips. The story opens in this 
way: — 

" It was on the first day of May, in the year 1769, 
that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, 
and left my family and peaceable habitation on the 
Yadkin Eiver, in North Carolina, to wander through 
the wilderness of America, in quest of the country 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 53 

of Kontuclvy, in company with Jolin Finley, John 
Stewart, Joseph Holden, James Monay, and AVilliam 
Cool. We proceeded successfully ; and after a long 
and fatiguing journey through a mountainous wilder- 
ness, in a westward direction, on the seventh day of 
June following we found ourselves on Red River, 
where John Finley had formerly been trading with 
the Indians, and, from the top of an eminence, saw 
with pleasure the beautiful level of the Kentucky. 
Here let me observe that for some time we had 
experienced the most uncomfortable weather, as a 
prelibation of our future sufferings. At this place 
we encamped, made a shelter to defend us from 
the inclement season, and began to hunt and recon- 
noitre the country. We found everywhere abundance 
of beasts of all sorts, through this vast forest. The 
buffalo were more frequent than I have seen cattle 
in the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, 
or cropping the herbage on those extensive plains, 
fearless, because ignorant of the violence of man. 
Sometimes we saw hundreds in a drove ; and the 
numbers about the salt springs were amazing. In 
this forest — the habitation af beasts of every kind 
natural to America — we practised hunting with 
great success until the 2 2d day of September follow- 
ing. This day, John Stewart and I had a pleasing 



54 DANIEL BOONE. 

ramble ; but fortune changed the scene in the close 
of it. We had passed through a great forest, on 
which stood myriads of trees, some gay with blossoms, 
others rich with fruits. Nature was here a series 
of wonders, and a fund of delight. Here she dis- 
played her ingenuity and industry in a variety of 
flowers .and fruits, beautifully colored, elegantly 
shaped, and charmingly flavored ; and we were 
diverted with innumerable animals presenting them- 
selves perpetually to our view. In the decline of 
the day, near Kentucky River, as we ascended the 
brow of a small hill, a number of Indians rushed 
out of a thick cane-brake upon us, and made us 
prisoners. The time of our sorrow was now arrived, 
and the scene fully opened. The Indians plundered 
us of what we had, and kept us in confinement seven 
days, treating us with common savage usage. 

*' During this time we discovered (betrayed) no 
uneasiness or desire to escape, w^hich made them less 
suspicious of us ; but in the dead of night, as we lay 
in a thick cane-brake by a large fire, when sleep had 
locked up their senses, my situation not disposing me 
for rest, I touched my companion and gently awoke 
him. We improved this favorable opportunity and 
departed, leaving them to take their rest, and 
speedily directed our course towards our old camp. 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 55 

but found it plundered, and the company dispersed 
and gone home. About this time my brother, 
Squire Boone, with another adventurer, who came 
to explore the country shortly after us, was wander- 
ing through the forest, determined to find me if pos- 
sible, and accidently found our camp. Notwithstand- 
ing the unfortunate circumstances of our company, 
and our dangerous situation as surrounded with hos- 
tile savages, our meeting so fortunately in the wil- 
derness made us reciprocally sensible of the utmost 
satisfaction.'' [This is not the simple language of a 
man like Boone, but rather that of an ambitious 
biographer, with a style of expression quite as tomid 
as his ambition.] " Soon after this, my companion 
in captivity, John Stewart, was killed by the savages, 
and the man that came with my brother returned 
home by himself. We were then in a dangerous, 
helpless situation, exposed daily to perils and death 
amongst the savages and wild beasts — not a white 
man in the country but ourselves ! Thus situated, 
many hundred miles from our families, in the 
howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally 
enjoyed the happiness we experienced. We con- 
tinued not in a state of indolence, but hunted every 
day, and prepared a little cottage to defend us 



5Q DANIEL BOONE. 

from the winter storms. We remained there undis- 
turbed during the winter. 

" On the first day of May, 1770, my brother 
returned home to the settlement by himself for a 
new recruit of horses and ammunition, leaving me 
by myself, without bread, salt or sugar, without com- 
pany of my fellow creatures, or even horse or dog." 

Here is a long story, told in a few words. The 
details of this weary winter's life, are just what 
every reader is eager to get hold of. The several 
points of these severe experiences of many months 
deserve to be dwelt on with a great deal more 
minuteness than either Boone or his biographer has 
seen fit to bestow upon them. The imagination of 
the reader is left, in a great degree, to fill out the 
picture ; but almost any active imagination can 
make it a complete one. 

The picture of these half dozen hunters, when, 
according to Boone's account, they found themselves 
at the place on Bed Biver where Finley had for- 
merly traded with the Indians, and from which 
eminence they all beheld with delight " the beauti- 
ful level of Kentucky," is a rare one in history, 
and well deserves a place on the artist's canvass. 
These bold men had been toiling through the forest, 
and up the mountain side, nearly the whole day, and 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 57 

were weary with their explorations. It was just at 
sunset when they reached the summit of the mountain. 
As they all came up to the point from wliich they 
stretched out their gaze over the western landscape, 
a scene met their eyes far surpassing the ideal of 
the most romantic dreamer. There lay the beauti- 
ful Kentucky Eiver, fed by its many branches. 
There were broad plains, and green slopes, and 
shaded dells, on which the eye rested with secret 
satisfaction and delight. Beyond the rolling coun- 
try close at hand, stretched away a boundless tract 
of prairie, clothed with luxuriant verdure, where 
roamed countless herds of buffalo and deer without 
fear of molestation. The setting sun shed a strange 
splendor on this wild scene in nature ; and the six 
men thought, as they thus gazed speechless upon its 
wild beauties, that they had never before experi- 
enced so deep and fresh a pleasure. For this very 
view they had traversed hundreds of miles of track- 
less wilderness ; and when at length their eyes 
rested upon it, as it lay sleeping in the western sun, 
they truly felt as if the Canaan of all their hopes 
had been reached. 

On this very spot whence they had caught their 
first view of beautiful Kentucky, they erected a 
rude log hut, protecting themselves from the sum- 



58 DANIEL BOONE. 

mer rains with strips of bark and intertwisted 
boughs of the trees. Day after day they sallied 
forth on hunting excursions, returning in safety 
again at night, and thus keeping the little party of 
half a dozen whole and unbroken. They killed 
deer ; they shot buffalo ; they trapped and fished ; 
and, in short, they practised all those many arts 
which belonp' to the life and secure the subsistence 
of the pioneer and hunter. They dreaded no dan- 
gers as yet ; they had seen no Indians, of whom so 
many stories had been borne to the settlements, and 
concluded they were not to suffer from molestation 
at all. 

Thus, for a long time, matters went on swirn- 
mingl3^ They were becoming more and more 
accustomed to their new life, and even began to 
calculate upon the propriety of returning to North 
Carolina for their families. Fearing nothing from 
the approach of the red man, they presently forgot 
to take those precautions which were, in fact, essen- 
tial to their daily safety, and so invited dangers 
when they might just as well repelled them. It 
was a fatal mistake for this little party of pioneers 
to separate ; yet they were thoughtless enough to 
do so, and the most disastrous consequences fol- 
lowed. They divided p — one party being com- 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 59 

posed of Stewart and Boone ; the other four men 
went exploring in another direction. Henceforth 
their ways diverged forever. Neither party saw the 
other again. 

As Boone has himself narrated, the Indians sur- 
prised him and his companion when they ought to 
have heen on the watch, and carried them off pris- 
oners. This was an entirely new phase of life for 
our forest hero. A man who, all his life, has had the 
free range of forest and field, would not he likely to 
keep quiet in a state of sudden imprisonment. His 
spirit would chafe sorely, and he would find himself 
impatient once more to he free. But Daniel Boone 
was a philosopher, and could see at a glance what 
was most prudent and safe. As soon as he compre- 
hended his novel and dangerous situation, he made 
up his mind to keep calm and resign himself to his 
fate. By this means he would disarm the suspicions 
of the savages, and have more ahundant oppor- 
tunities to make his escape. Patience is a rare vir- 
tue, all the hooks and moralists tell us ; and few 
men would have had the sagacity, as Boone had, to 
see that his fate hung entirely on his practise of 
that one quality. 

He was a captive for seven days. At the end of. 
that time, tlicy lay down at night in the midst of 



60. DANIEL BOONE. 

their tawny guard, and disposed themselves for 
sleep. At the still midnight hour, when the silence 
of the wilderness is indeed awful, Boone raised his 
head and looked around him. By the deep and 
steady breathing of his savage captors, he knew they 
were fast locked in slumber. Then> he felt, his 
opportunity had come. Cautiously awakening his 
companion, they both regained their feet, took their 
rifles from the keeping of the Indians, and crept out 
of the little camp. They both felt that discovery 
would have been certain death ; and therefore they 
pushed forward in the midnight gloom with re- 
doubled courage and energy. But they succeeded 
in eluding their captors, and commenced their wan- 
derings together again. 

They went to their old camp ; but their former 
companions were gone. Everything betokened dis- 
appointment and desolation. The camp had been 
broken up, and appearances indicated violence and 
plunder. From this point they never found traces 
of those four men more. Their fate remains to this 
day a scaled mystery. Whether they fell victims to 
the bloody rage of the Indian, who had surprised 
them in their fancied security, or they had wandered 
away in different directions, and, weary and 
despairing, had laid their bones in the undiscovered 



I 



HIS EMIGRATION TO KENTUCKY. 61 

solitudes of the wilderness, no man lives that can 
tell. And thus sadly ended the career of the dis- 
coverer and early eulogist of Kentucky, John Finley ; 
that man whose vivid reports of this new western 
paradise kindled enthusiasm in so many bosoms on 
the banks of the peaceful Yadkin. 

Boone and Stewart were therefore left alone. 
Their sole reliance, both for subsistence and defence, 
was on their unerring rifles. They built a hut to 
protect themselves against the influence of the wintry 
weather, and hunted and watched, waiting patiently 
for the spring to open. In the month of January, 
'they espied a couple of men coming towards them. 
Looking closer, they saw they were white men. 
What must have been the feelings of our hero, to 
find that one of them was Squire Boone, his young- 
est brother ! Squire brought news from Daniers 
wife and children ; and Stewart was rejoiced to get 
intelligence from the settlement. The circumstances 
that led to the discovery of Boone^s little camp by the 
new comers, were never described ; but it seems, at 
least, like the most marvellous piece of good fortune 
on record. Yet it» was all thus designed, for grand 
ulterior purposes ; it could not by any fatality have 
been otlierwise. 

A second time this little party separated. Daniel 
6 



62 DANIEL BOONE. 

Boone and Stewart pursued one course, and Squire 
Boone and his friend — whose name even is not 
known — followed another. One would think they 
had already learned a better lesson. The conse- 
quence was, Stewart was surprised and slaughtered by 
the Indians, while Daniel Boone made his escape ; 
and his brother Squire's companion becoming 
alarmed, probably thought, in a fit of desperation, 
to find his way back alone to Carolina, and was 
never heard of again alive. It is said that a skele- 
ton was long afterwards found in the region, which 
was believed to have told the tale of his dark and 
mysterious fate. Thus were the brothers Boone left 
the only white occupants of that vast territory, the 
real pioneers in the march of civilization that has 
been going forward to the West, from that trying 
and doubtful day to these jubilant and prosperous 
days of our own. 



63 
CHAPTEK IV. 

ALL ALONE. 

SPRING came down upon the forest and the 
plains again, like a countless flock of birds 
with bright emerald plumage. The earth 
laughed once more at her own surpassing beauty. 
The weary winter had worn away at last, and the 
spirits of the two men rose with the heightened 
influences of the new season. They had talked over 
the needs of the expedition while housed in tKeir 
cabin through the winter, and at the approach of 
spring felt prepared for action. In order to effect a 
real settlement in that region, it was necessary to 
bring forward recruits, animals and provisions. The 
question was, how was this best to be done ? During 
their winter discussions at their fire, they had can- 
vassed it very freely, and concluded at last what was 
best to be attempted. 

The powder was low, and bullets were scarce for 
the rifles; if these two items failed, all was lost. 
Hence it was important that something should be done 
as soon as possible. Daniel Boone was all ready for 
the sacrifice, and his brother Squire was quite as 



64 TANIEL BOONE. 

willing to perform his part. The plan was matured. 
Daniel would remain where he was, and Squire 
would travel back alone to North Carolina, to 
obtain recruits and supplies. It was a distance 
of many hundred miles. A bolder project was never 
undertaken than that which makes the names of 
these two devoted Boone brothers immortal. 

So the younger one started off on his solitary 
tramp homeward, taking the blessing of his brother 
to the wife and children at home ; while the other 
remained behind, to eke out long days, and weeks, 
and months in utter solitude, hopeful and patient 
for the turn of affairs that was to come. Both 
were heroic in their resolutions ; it would be hard to 
say whose lot was the harder, or which one took upon 
himself the greater dangers. It was something to 
begin a solitary march through a pathless wilderness, 
five hundred miles homeward, exposed to all sorts 
of obstacles and dangers, dependent on the rifle alone 
for food, and trusting to Providence for shelter alike 
from wild beasts and the elements. It was no less 
an undertaking to resolve to sit down calmly and 
patiently where he was, with no companion even in 
the form of a dog, no voice to respond to one's own, 
no human face in which to read sympathetic answers 
to the emotions of one's own soul, and to live on in 



ALL ALONE. 65 

this way for slowly revolving weeks, and months, 
doubtful whether the brave messenger homewards 
would ever reach his destination. 

We could wish to read nothing more vivid, if it 
could be had, than the record of the secret experi- 
ences of our hero, during this protracted period of 
solitude. All stories of fights, of battles, of sieges, 
and of storms, would pale before the living realities 
of this one man's inward struggles and contests. 
To-day, all hope and buoyancy, with the smiles of 
nature finding their way into his receptive heart ; 
to-morrow, cast down with the weight of a sadder 
mood, left to wonder if dark fate had finally over- 
taken him, and almost ready to give over all as lost. 
Few men have lived to feel what Boone felt in the 
period of his solitary stay in the wilderness of Ken- 
tucky. He best expresses it himself in the few and 
simple words taken down by Filson, — " Alone by 
myself, without bread, salt, or sugar, without com- 
pany of any fellow creatures, or even a horse or 
dog. '' That was solitude indeed. If any one 
should feel inclined to doubt its reality, let him go 
out of our cities into a common woodland, and try 
it even there for a single day. Besides all this, it 
was well known to our hero that if he should be 
captured by the Indians again, there was no chance 
6- 



66 DANIEL BOONE. 

for him ; having once given them the slip success- 
fully, he could not hope to accomplish the like feat 
again. One comrade, Stewart, had already been 
butchered before his eyes, and the fate of the other 
four v/as involved in a mystery hardly less painful. 
Of course he could not fail to keep all this fixed 
steadily before his thought, and to measure his own 
chances by the same standard. But we will let him 
describe his sensations for himself, as set down by 
his biographer, Filson : 

** I confess I never before was under greater neces- 
sity of exercising philosophy and fortitude. A few 
days I passed uncomfortably. The idea of a beloved 
wife and family, and their anxiety upon the account 
of my absence and exposed situation, made sensible 
impressions on my heart. A thousand dreadful 
apprehensions presented themselves to my view, and 
had undoubtedly disposed me to melancholy, if farther 
indulged. One day I undertook a tour through the 
country, and the diversity and beauties of nature I met 
with in this charming season expelled every gloomy 
and vexatious thought. Just at the close of day the 
gentle gales retired, and left the place to the disposal 
of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most trem- 
ulous leaf. I had gained the summit of a commanding 
ridge, and, looking round with astonishing delight, 



ALL ALONE. C7 

behold the ample plains, the beauteous tracts below. 
On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, 
that rolled in silent dignity, marking the western 
boundary of Kentucky with inconceivable grandeur. 
At a vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their 
venerable brows, and penetrate the clouds. All 
things were still. I kindled a fire near a fountain 
of sweet water, and feasted on the loin of a buck 
which a few hours before I had killed. The sullen 
shades of night soon overspread the whole hemisphere, 
and the earth seemed to gasp after the hovering 
moisture. 

" My roving excursion this day had fatigued my 
body and diverted my imagination. I laid me down to 
sleep, and awoke not until the sun had chased away 
the night. I continued this tour, and in a few days 
explored a considerable part of the country, each day 
equally pleased as the first. I returned to my old 
camp, which was not disturbed in my absence. I did 
not confine my lodging to it, but often reposed in 
thick cane-brakes, to avoid the savages, who, I 
believe, often visited my camp, but, fortunately for 
me, in my absence. In this situation I was con- 
stantly exposed to danger and death." 

There seems to be some fatality about unprac- 
tised persons trying to use the pen, A man of 



68 DANIEL BOONE. 

Boone's perfect simplicity of character could have 
told his story to a group of listeners without any 
trouble whatever ; hut the moment he attempts to 
put his woodland experiences on paper, even though 
it he hy the hand of another, he parts with his sim- 
plicity and straightway becomes turgid, and, in a 
degree, bombastic. The fault may be chiefly 
Filson's, who wrote down his narrative ; for it is 
not to be supposed, knowing what we do of his 
slender education, that Boone could tell what was 
the best style to write his story, and, like most 
others of his class, he thought, of course, that the 
most inflated and sounding must produce the great- 
est effect. It is reasonable to conclude that Boone 
merely gave his biographer the outline of his forest 
life, and that the latter expanded, and colored, and 
over-dressed it to suit his own tawdry taste. 

From Boone^s account, therefore, we know that he 
did not stay long in one place, during the absence 
of his brother. He traversed the eastern portion of 
the State, and obtained a view of the great Ohio 
Kiver. Three months he wandered about in these 
vast solitudes, shut out from the sight of a single 
human face in all that time. If ever a man was 
in the truest and strictest sense a pioneer, that man 
was Daniel Boone. 



ALL ALONE. 69 

Young Squire Boone came back. He had trav- 
ersed that long distance, to and fro, without a com- 
panion, and at last he stood by his brother's side 
again. He had faithfully kept his promise to 
return. He brought along with him a pair of 
horses, with provisions. He brought welcome news 
from the brave hunter's wife and family. He 
brought tidings of the murmur of the people at the 
foreign rule that oppressed them, and possibly of 
the recent Boston Massacre, which sent a thrill of 
horror through the country. The horses were inval- 
uable, and yet a source of the greatest anxiety ; for 
they vieve just what would be most likely to betray 
them into the hands of the Indians. They could 
not be hidden, as the brothers could hide themselves. 
They would not fail to testify their presence at any 
and at all times to the Indian. For eight months 
these two men roamed over the tract of territory 
upon which they had entered, and were not once 
molested. It is the strangest of all facts 
recorded in the history of settlements, and goes to 
show that Boone had, in reality, hit upon his true 
destiny as a pioneer. 

Having traversed the country lying between the 
Green and Cumberland rivers, and found those curi- 
ous peculiarities of a limestone soil, known in Ken- 



70 DANIEL BOONE. 

tucky by the name of sink-holes, the brothers came 
back to the Kentucky Eiver again, where they 
determined to establish themselves permanently. 
This, to their eyes, was the most attractive of all the 
spots they had yet seen. Here they remained until 
they had become pretty familiar with the country ; 
they were attached to the new land, and had waited 
to behold the beauty of its promises, and were satis- 
fied. This w^as in the year 1771. 

Finally, Daniel Boone began to think of the old 
home he had left in North Carolina. The recollec- 
tion of his wife and children tugged steadily at his 
heart ; he felt an inclination to return, which he 
could no longer resist. Not that he had any desire 
to remain in Carolina, for such was not the fact ; it 
was already his determination to bring back the loved 
ones with him, and, with them, to take quiet and per- 
manent possession of the beautiful country he had 
discovered. He returned. His old friends received 
him with the delight and wonder with which they 
would have one, of whom they had given up all 
hopes. He had many an exciting adventure to 
relate to them about his life in the wilderness ; and 
the stories of the dangers he had passed through, 
while they filled all listeners with fear, were never- 
theless calculated to inflame their imaginations. 



ALL ALONE. 71 

Boone hoped, no doubt, to have succeeded in mak- 
ing up a little party of settlers without a great deal 
of delay or difficulty ; but in this respect he did not 
realize all his hopes. Of course, the wife and chil- 
dren were ready to return with him, even though 
they went without the presence of a single other 
family to cheer them. But that was not 
enough for him. He had tried the perils of the 
wilderness of Kentucky for himself, and knew that 
in numbers and courage alone there was safety ; 
hence it was his wish to enlist as many families as he 
could in the project of forming a new settlement. 
To effect this, he had first to persuade all the 
dwellers along the course of the peaceful Yadkin 
that the plan was, under proper circumstances, a pru- 
dent as well as profitable one. This he found to be 
slow and difficult work, indeed. They received his 
glowing accounts of the country with an exciting 
pleasure, but still could not bring themselves to 
believe that it was altogether safe to go out as yet 
and possess it. 

For the long term of two years, therefore, did he 
patiently remain at home, before he was able to pre- 
vail on them to make a start. Other men would 
have given it up in despair, but he knew better how 
to advance a purpose in which his soul was so bound 



72 DANIEL BOONE. 

up. He was willing to wait, because he knew the 
object aimed at was worth the pains. And although 
it lay not in his power to overcome the fears of the 
Yadkin settlers, when the fate of Stewart and Finley 
was talked about, he still felt sure that time would 
aid him in the work he had set before him to do, and 
therefore remained quiet among them, ever ready to 
answer all their questions respecting Kentucky, yet 
waiting and hoping for the change in public senti- 
ment to work itself out. For two years, as we said, 
he thus patiently waited ; a long time to some, but 
not long when compared with the greatness of the 
plans that were thus to be accomplished. 

At length the little party was made up. It con- 
sisted of only the two Boone families — those of 
Daniel and Squire ; those who had thought they 
would go, not feeling quite ready when the time really 
came. The Boones, however, determined to set the 
example, and to leave that, and their description of 
the new country westward, to do their own work upon 
the minds of the people in the Yadkin settlements. 
They set forth on the 25th day of September, 1773, 
taking along with them some cattle and horses. 

Courage generally makes its own conquests ; and 
by the time this little party reached Powell's Valley, 
they found, to their astonishment and delight, that 



ALL ALONE. 73 

the stories of the new country had persuaded five 
more families to join the projected expedition, 
together with a hand of some forty strong and deter- 
mined men, all well armed for the enterprise and 
its dangers. It was truly a great accession. At 
the head of this hand of pioneers Daniel Boone was 
placed, hy virtue of his character and experience, 
and at once led them out into the western wilder- 
ness, across the long dreaded mountains. A more 
interesting sight than the departure of this stout- 
hearted little company of pioneers the world had not 
witnessed since the departure of the Pilgrims from 
Delft Haven for the sterile shores of New England. 
It comprised all the elements necessary to huild up 
a great and powerful nation. 

But a cloud rested upon them ere long, whose 
shadow served to ohscure all their plans. They had 
proceeded safely on their journey till the tenth day 
of Octoher, seeing nothing of the Indians, so much 
dreaded hy all, when a most sad fatality overtook 
them, rending the heart of the leader with grief. It 
seems that a part of the company, seven in numher, 
had gone hack a little way to collect together some 
of the cattle that had wandered a little from the 
main hody ; and, fearing no danger hecause they 
had hitherto met with none, they became in a degree 
7 



74 DANIEL BOONE. 

thoughtless about keeping the usual watch. In an 
unguarded moment they were set upon by a party 
of savages, who had stealthily tracked them along, 
and, without the slightest warning, six out of the 
seven were cruelly butchered ! Of these six, a 
young son of Daniel Boone, only seventeen years of 
age, was one. The main body of the pioneers 
heard the sounds proceeding from the fight while it 
was going on, and at once rushed to the scene ; but 
they reached the spot only to find that all had been 
slain but one, and the young and brave son of Boone 
among them. The seventh had managed to make 
his escape. 

Here was a sorrowful beginning indeed. Slaughter 
on the very threshold of the undertaking. It is not 
within the power of writer to describe the anguish 
of the bereft mother, the speechless grief of the 
father, who felt that he carried the responsibility of 
the whole enterprise on his own shoulders, or the 
terror that struck into the hearts of the entire com- 
pany. There was grief and fear in that little band, 
brave and self-reliant as they confessedly were, 
which none of them were able to overcome. The 
first question each one seemed to put himself was, 
what is to be done next ? They did not dare to 
think of going on, for the forest might be swarming 



ALL ALONE. 75 

with "bloodthirsty savages. Boone listened to all, his 
own heart swelling with sorrow. He could not push 
forward with hlind recklessness ; he did not feel like 
asking others to share unseen dangers which he had 
found to be so very bitter in tasting himself ; and, 
above all, his heart yearned towards the dear wife at 
his side, whose boy had just been sacrificed to the 
ruthlessness of the savages ; how could lie, therefore, 
affect a courage which he had not, especially when it 
could not benefit the rest of the company by infusing 
a new courage into them ? 

No ; Daniel Boone was but a man, and a true one ; 
there was nothing like braggardism in his nature ; 
he knew better than to set at defiance the deep and 
thorough instincts of our common nature, and there- 
fore he submitted, and in silence obeyed them. The 
company turned their faces the other way. Boone 
would even then have gone forward, had all the 
the rest been willing ; but he showed himself a 
greater man, and a more capable and courageous 
pioneer, by finally yielding to the feelings of those 
who had made him their leader. Yet he never in 
his heart intended to give his purpose up ; he knew 
the day was not very far off when it must be resumed 
again. 

It was resolved to fall back upon the Clinch Kiver, 



76 DANIEL BOONE. 

in Virginia, wliere was a settlement of many years' 
standing. The larger portion of the little band 
returned to this spot never to go forth into the 
western wilderness again ; but Boone only bided his 
time. Lord Dunmore was then the Royal Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, just as the other colonies had 
officers of foreign appointment. It was tlie avowed 
policy of the English Government to reward the 
men who had distinguished themselves on behalf of 
her arms in the old French War, with gifts of wild 
land; and Lord Dunmore exercised the authority 
granted him for this purpose, by making liberal 
grants to such as he personally knew to have 
proved their bravery in the English cause. Hence, 
at the very time when this little party of pioneers 
returned disheartened from their march, and entered 
the settlements on Clinch Eiver, there was much 
doing in the way of locating the lands of which 
Lord Dunmore was about to put them in possession. 
Boone reached them at exactly the right time. 
They had had a present, but did not know what it 
was worth. Boone was able to tell them all about 
its value. They were told that lands somewhere 
in the west were theirs of right, in requital of 
their services in the war ; Boone alone was able to 
inform them where they were, and how they were to 



ALL ALONE. 77 

be roax^hed. This was not the first tract of land, by 
any means, that was bestowed on the brave soldiers 
of that time. 

To locate and measure off the land, however, for 
the use of the soldiers to whom it was to be given, 
it was necessary to send out a party of practised 
surveyors ; and this the Governor proceeded to do 
forthwith. A party was detailed who went into 
the country now known by the name of Kentucky, 
headed by Capt. Thomas Bullitt The party in- 
cluded the names of such men as Harrod, Taylor, 
Bullitt, and McAffee, — men who afterwards made 
a memorable mark in the history of Kentucky. 
They found the stories of Boone, glowing as they 
were, to be true. They found immense cane-brakes, 
threaded by well worn tracks of the buffalo, which 
tracks they called " streets." They came upon 
salt licks near the streams, where the wild animals 
were wont to go and obtain that necessary commo- 
dity — salt ; and witnessed at these places the fre- 
quent contests that arose among the brutes for 
supremacy. 

This party went out in the year 1773. Puring 

the next year, another followed. Capt. James 

Harrod, at the head of a body of forty men, came 

down the Ohio River in the month of May, from 

7* 



78 DANIEL BOONE. 

the Monongohela, and proceeded to lay out the 
town then known as Harrodstown, but now as Har- 
rodsburgh. They laid out the place in lots of half 
an acre each, and allowed for each another outlying 
lot of five acres ; a liberal style of setting a new 
town on foot, and proving that land was to be had 
in plenty. It naturally makes men's ideas large to 
be placed where nothing but the horizon bounds 
their view on every side. Besides this second party 
of surveyors under Harrod, there was still a third, 
that explored along the course of the Kentucky 
Eiver, starting from where Louisville stands to-day. 
Thus was the new comiti'y coming under the experi- 
enced eyes of surveyors very rapidly. It was liter- 
ally staked out among them, and each selected some 
particular portions for his own. The work was all 
done in behalf of the men who had served the 
mother country against the French and Indians; 
they were waiting to go forth and enter upon their 
possessions. But it w^as accompanied with danger. 
The Indians lurked on every side. The surveying 
parties felt their savage cruelty, and the little 
exploring party of Boone had previously yielded up 
a costly sacrifice to them, as we have already nar- 
rated. 



ALL ALONE 79 

In the vicinity of the settlements on Clinch 
Eiver, Boone remained for more than six months. 
It was a sore trial to a daring spirit like his to be 
thus hemmed in, without the power to move, for so 
long a period. He had expected far different things 
in this time ; his thoughts had led him out into that 
beautiful land of Kentucky where he was to make 
his home, and there he had hoped to be with his 
family at the very time he was thus shut up in the 
settlements of Virginia ; yet he was patient ; no 
man knew better than Boone that nothing so wastes 
one's power as to chafe at delays, of instead calmly 
resigning himself to them. 

The Government of the Old Dominion had heard 
of the rare courage and hardihood of Daniel Boone, 
stories of whose skill and perseverance as a pioneer 
had been passed around from one little settlement 
to another ; and Governor Dunmore resolved forth- 
with to send for a man whose character was so firm, 
and whose services could be turned to so good 
account. It was an unexpected summons to our hero, 
who had no reason to suppose himself in any way 
marked above other men. His friends received the 
tidings with a great deal of satisfaction, since it 
showed in what high esteem their brave leader was 
held by the powers of the State. It could have 



80 DANIEL BOONE. 

brought little pleasure, however, to the wife and 
mother, for her heart was thus made to open its 
wounds anew. No march into the wilderness now 
but would bring back to her vision the cruel picture 
of her murdered boj. 



81 



CHAPTER V 

TRANSYLVANIA. 



WITH the request of Governor Diinmore 
Daniel Boone complied immediately. 
He was already weary with waiting for 
the waters to move again. A single person, IMichael 
Stoner by name, was associated with him. He after- 
wards gave his own name to a branch, or fork, of the 
Lickino; River, and was wfll known as a frontiers- 
man. In return for the valiant services he per- 
formed as a pioneer, he received a liberal tract of 
land in Kentucky, lying on Stoner's Fork. 

The winter was filled up with plans and projects, 
which Boone himself felt to be feasible, but which 
he had no certainty of ever being able to carry out. 
When Lord Dunmore, however, signified to him that 
his services were wanted by the Government as a 
pioneer, he was all ready to go. He knew very well 
what dangers from the Indians beset the surveying 
parties already in Kentucky, and the need there was 
of carrying aid of some sort to them ; therefore he 
did not feel the least inclination to wait for circum- 
stances to change ; he was sure the work to be done 



82 DAOTEL BOONE. 

oiiglit to be done at once. Stoner and lie set out 
together : not a very strong force to support a party 
in peril from the savages, yet making up in cour- 
age and assurance what they lacked in numbers. 

The distance from Clinch Eiver to the Falls of the 
Ohio is about eight hundred miles ; such miles as 
are not travelled in these times across the Western 
States, crowded with obstacles and dangers, and 
most difficult to be traversed by reason of every cir- 
cumstance. Yet these two men overcame the dis- 
tance in sixty-two days, and arrived at the settlement 
in safety. It was hardly less enterprising a journey 
than that made by Boone's younger brother alone, 
through the wilderness from Kentucky to North 
Carolina. The path to the West was now opened, 
and he saw it. The fruits of his ow^n work he beheld 
on every hand. Harrod was the first one with whom 
Boone and his companion communicated, and to him 
he made known the danger that threatened from the 
hostile Indians on the north. This w^as, in fact, the 
main object of his errand. Governor Dunmore had 
heard of the threats of the savages, and desired that 
the surveying party should be apprised of them as 
soon as possible, that every precaution might be 
taken against their results. 

The assaults were made by the savages, just as was 



TRANSYLVANIA. 83 

feared. A party belonging to the Harrocl company 
were surprised, in the vicinity of a spring they had 
recently discovered. One of the men, in his fright, 
made for the river, and it is reported that he sailed 
with all possible speed down the Ohio and the 
Mississippi, and made his way in his open boat by 
sea around to Philadelphia ! But such a story is 
beyond belief. It was as easy to credit so enormous 
a narrative, in those days, as to receive one of more 
modest dimensions. 

The northwestern tribes of Indians came down 
upon the settlers with hearts full of hatred. The 
principal tribe that opened hostilities was the Shaw- 
nees, who dvrelt along the banks of the Great and 
Little Miami rivers ; but there were other tribes in 
the northwest that joined them. These savages had 
every reason to feel jealous and unquiet. Here 
were men of a strange race come among them, occu- 
pying their lands and crowding them along. Their 
customs were in all respects dissimilar, and they could 
hold no sympathies in common. The white man 
would of course have preferred to dwell alone and in 
peace, but the red man could not stand by and see an 
enemy encroaching upon his hunting-grounds, with- 
out resisting him. It is a sad tale, that of the fading 



84 DANIEL BOONE. 

away of the race of red men, and it never will be 
told in all its details. 

Having done his work so well, Boone received at 
the hands of Governor Dunmore an appointment to 
a military command. Three distinct posts, or garri- 
sons, were placed under him ; a great responsibility 
to be put upon any one man, but no more than 
Boone was fully capable of sustaining. These gar- 
risons were all posted on the frontier, and of course 
were very much exposed to danger from the Indians. 
It was not long before a pitched battle was fought. 
The locality of the fight was at the point where the 
Great Kenhawa joins with the Ohio River, and it is 
spoken of in the annals of Virginia as the bloodiest 
and most hotly-contested battle of any known in her 
history. The name of the Indian leader in this famous 
fight was Cornstalk, acknowledged to be at the head 
of the whole Indian confederacy. Of the whites 
engaged in this forest encounter, seventy-five were 
slain outright, and one hundred and forty were 
wounded. Eleven hundred men took part in the 
battle, on the side of the whites, led by Gen. Andrew 
Lewis, one of the bravest of the brave Virginians. 
They needed their best leader in that time of trial, 
for the Indians were marshalled by one of their most 
noted chieftains. 



TRANSYLVANIA. 85 

This bloody battle was a decisive one, and the 
savages were, for the time, repulsed and taught their 
place. As the evidence of winter approached, Boone, 
having conscientiously discharged the duties on which 
he was sent out by Lord Dunmore, made ready to 
return to his friends on Clinch River, where he pur- 
posed to pass the winter in quiet. In the peaceful 
life of the settlements he would find leisure to set on 
foot new and greater plans for the realization of his 
dreams. His thoughts would be free to run back 
over the past, and from those experiences he could 
draw figures of the untried future. Kentucky was 
his continual dream. Her plains and prairies lay 
mapped out in his mind, in all their beauty and 
magnificence. He knew for himself, from having 
studied it with his own eyes and measured it with 
his own feet, that his discovery of that land was to 
make a vast difference with the future of the white 
race. He had a prescience of the greatness and 
power that were yet to come. And the winter would 
not fail to be profitable to him in the highest sense, 
while he was thus left to think over his plans with- 
out molestation. The activity of the mind of Boone, 
during that winter, was of just as great account 
in its results, as if he had been physically engaged 
all the while in exploration. Scott tells a story of 
8 



86 DANIEL BOONE. 

the traveller, Mimgo Park, that being caught by a 
friend idly skipping smooth stones across a certain 
river, he confessed he was only engaged, in his mind, 
in trying to solve the problem of the sources of the 
Nile. These idle hours are often full of the pith 
and moment of action, and are consequently better 
than all the others together. The winter thus wore 
away. It was now well understood that no land had 
yet been discovered that, for climate and soil, was 
such a prize for settlers ; and the authorities, as well 
as the people of Virginia, resolved to go forth and 
take possession of such a noble patrimony. Accord- 
ingly, there was much talk made about the new 
land everywhere. The subject was discussed in all 
its bearings. All were awake to the enterprise, and 
freely counted up the advantages that were sure 
to grow out of an undertaking to settle the country. 
The authorities, in particular, saw an addition to 
their own power in the settlement of the new State, 
and resolved at once to avail themselves of their 
chances. Accordingly a bounty of four hundred 
acres of land was offered to every person who 
would go out and become a settler ; that is, to any 
one who would build a hut, or cabin, clear a suffi- 
cient piece of land for the sustenance of a family, 
and raise a single crop of com. The right to the 



TRANSYLVANIA. 87 

land under such conditions, is wliat was called a 
" settlement right," and a great many such were 
made about that particular time. ^ 

It is necessary at this point of our narrative, to 
introduce another character upon the stage, and a 
man whose influence over the western country was 
hardly surpassed by the long and unparalleled 
career of Daniel Boone himself. That man was 
Eichard Henderson. He was a native genius. His 
natural gifts were sufficiently generous to have 
placed him in the front rank of any society into 
which he might have been thrown. He was 
a full grown man, in fact, before he knew how to 
read or write ; and it became necessary for him 
to teach himself in these rudimentary branches 
of learning, at a time in life when most men would 
have felt the inclination for anything else. Born 
in North Carolina, he found himself early in life 
the possessor of the little local office — no doubt 
very important at that period — of constable. This, 
at least, served to bring him out into the notice of 
the people. As opportunities offered, he showed 
that he was possessed of the gift of eloquence ; he 
could wield a powerful influence over those around 
him by his personal address, and, knowing what 
resources were thus placed at his command, he 



88 DANIEL BOONE. 

determined to study and enter upon tlie practice of 
the law. His talents were truly wonderful, and his 
manners were of the most engaging and popular 
character. Everybody was his friend. So rapidly 
did he rise in his profession, in a short time he was 
made one of the Judges of the State. This would 
have been likely to satisfy the ambition of any 
man of no more than ordinary talent, who would 
have duly composed his thoughts and considered 
his worldly purposes all answered ; but it was not 
so with Henderson ; he grew restless, was lavish 
with his money, could not bear the trammels of 
social life and customs with which he was surround- 
ed, and finally conceived a plan of emigration west- 
ward. It was a plan, too, in all respects worthy of 
the greatness of the man's nature. Ordinary 
schemes of the same kind grow dim before the 
brilliancy of the project set on foot by him. 

In order, therefore, to retrieve his fortunes and 
make himself a name worth recording, he resolved 
to lead out and found a colony. He was, in those 
times, a bold man who would seriously entertain 
such a project. Gov. Morehead, of Kentucky, 
describes the plan thus : "In the autumn of the 
year 1774, there originated in North Carolina one 
of the most extraordinary schemes of ambition and 



TRANSYLVANIA. 89 

speculation which was exhibited in an age pregnant 
with such events. Eight private gentlemen — Rich- 
ard Henderson, William Johnstone, Nathaniel Hart, 
John Tuttrel, David Hart, John Williams, James 
Hogg, and Leonard Henley Bullock contrived the 
project of purchasing a large tract of country in 
the west from the Cherokee Indians, and provision- 
ary arrangements were made, with a view to the 
accomplishment of their object, for a treaty to be 
held with them the ensuing year. This was the 
celebrated Transylvania Company, which formed 
so singular a connection with our early annals. In 
March, 1775, Col. Henderson, on behalf of his 
associates, met the chiefs of the Cherokees, who 
were attended by twelve hundred warriors, at a fort 
on the AVataga, the south-eastern branch of the 
Holston River. A council was held, the terms were 
discussed, and the purchase was consummated, includ- 
ing the whole tract of country between the Cumber- 
land and Kentucky rivers." 

This superb tract of land was, for size, of the 
dimensions of a kingdom ; and it is said that its 
puix'hase was secured with a very trifling amount of 
valuables. Its soil was of the best ; the plains and 
slopes were pictures of beauty ; rivers and small 
streams interlaced on every portion of its surface. 
8- 



90 DANIEL BOONE. 

To tlie enterprising settler of that time, it must 
have seemed a perfect paradise. It lay on the 
back of Virginia, North and South Carolina, com- 
prehending the Kentucky, Cherokee, and Ohio rivers, 
besides smaller streams and rivulets unnumbered, 
and was about one hundred miles square ; a truly 
royal domain, and worthy of the best blood run- 
ning in the veins of man. Henderson threw open 
this magnificent tract to settlement, and proceeded 
to invite colonists into it from all quarters. Nor 
was he compelled to wait long in order to secure 
success. Very soon he became, by right of his 
character, the Governor of the entire colony. There 
are various stories about Boone's connection with the 
origin of this grand plan of colonization, yet 
nothing on the subject may be said to be definitely 
known. Some suppose that he was secretly em- 
ployed by the persons interested in getting up this 
project, and that they subsequently acted on the 
information he brought them respecting the value 
of the lands. If he was the agent of such a com- 
pany, it may be safely asserted that he perfoimed 
his work faithfully ; they could not have found a 
man more capable or reliable. 

The next thing was, after obtaining possession of 
the lands, to settle them. To do this, it was neces- 



TRANSYLVANIA. 91 

sary that some well-known leader sliould be found, 
wlio had the ability and fearlessness to pioneer for 
the colonists, showing them the value of the new 
territory and the perfect safety in going out to take 
possession of it. Very naturally, the thoughts of 
the leaders in this great enterprise centered upon 
Daniel Boone. His fame had already gone abroad. 
What any one man was thought able to do, in 
threading the wilderness, it was readily believed 
Boone could do of all others. Besides, he knew 
this country from actual observation. He had lived 
in it, long months at a time, with not the sound of 
a white man's voice to cheer his heart. He had 
hunted the wild game in its dense coverts and 
mighty fastnes^e^. The streams ran before his own 
eyes, and he had let his secret thoughts and dreams 
sail grandly down their peaceful currents. Know- 
ing this, it was most natural that they should apply 
to him for the aid he alone could render them. 

Accordingly, he signified his willingness to start 
off on the errand confided to him. Again he must 
exile himself from his family, and run the gauntlet 
of those terrible dangers of whose presence in the 
wilderness his wife already knew. He loved his 
wife and children as much as any man ; yet it was 
contrary to his nature to remain idly at home, when 



92 DAXIEL BOONE. 

there were great things for him to aid in doing 
abroad. He therefore took leave of them, prepared 
to risk his fortunes once more in the land of the 
savages. A party of men, all provided with arms 
and ammunition, was made up for him, which he 
was asked to command. Their first object was to 
open a road between the Cumberland Eidge and 
Kentucky ; a road that could be travelled by those 
adventurous settlers who were eager to follow the 
path thus made. 

It was no light work, in the first place, to sur- 
mount the mountains. A natural gap, or passage- 
way, had before been discovered, and it was in its 
vicinity that Boone's little party of pioneers were 
surprised before by the Indians, and compelled to 
return to Clinch Eiver, with the loss of six out of 
seven young men of the company. There were 
perils enough on the hither side of this undertaking ; 
they would be many times multiplied when they 
came to the other. The wildness of the mountain 
scenery, however, was a source of inspiration to a soul 
like that of Boone. In the frowning shadows, 
made more terrible still to the uncultivated imagina- 
tion by the cry of wolves and the shriek of owls, he 
found recesses where his courageous heart could feel 
itself enjoying only the unmolested solitude he 



I 



TRANSYLVANIA. 93 

craved. The forest, however lonely to other men, 
had no terrors for him. Even the presence of 
Indians failed to inspire him with the fear and 
timidity from which all the rest were wont to suffer. 
They passed on through the gorge in the mountain- 
chain, its solitudes echoing almost sepulchrally to 
the sound of then' voices. The woods loomed 
solemnly and grand above their heads. Precipices 
yawned hungTily below them. Chasms, with deep 
and dai'k pools in their hearts, slept sullenly at their 
feet. The morning sun visited the ravines late, 
when all the rest of nature was alive and exulting in 
tlie glory of its light. And still this little file of 
resolute men kept steadily on, led by the single ray 
that ever beams out of a fixed purpose. Into the 
gloomy solitudes they plunged without hesitation, 
scarce heeding or dreaming that a great nation was 
to be drawn magnetically after them. There have 
been pioneer parties since that day, but few whose 
track westward lias been followed with more lively 
interest than this. 

The world could not travel without roads ; in fact, 
the road is the first signal of civilization. Boone 
and his men, therefore, opened their path as they 
went along. They became surveyors, at the same 
time that they were hunters with the rifle. Slowly 



94 DANIEL EOONE. 

they advanced, and patiently they kept at their 
work. The man who should have presumed to go in 
quest of them, starting from the settlements in 
Virginia, would have been able easily to track 
them all the way along. They saw the work cf their 
hands, and felt a glow of pride and satisfaction at 
what they had accomplished. The sunlight was let 
in upon the forest in a narrow strip, following which 
would conduct any traveller safely along to the new 
settlement about to be established by the Tran- 
sylvania Company in Kentucky. 

They experienced no difficulty whatever from the 
opposition of the Indians, until they had advanced to 
a point within fifteen miles of Boonesborough ; here 
they were most unexpectedly assailed by them, and 
put to the necessity of making an earnest and vigor- 
ous defence. The red men knew not what this 
mysterious road meant. It awakened the deepest sus- 
picions. Hence they concluded it was best to end it 
where it was, by putting its makers out of existence. 
While the party of surveyors were off their guard, 
engaged with the main business for which they had 
travelled so far, the Indians made a sudden dash at 
them from the thicket, and, after a close and bloody 
struggle, succeeded in killing two of their number 
before they could be repulsed. Boone, however, did 



TRANSYLVANIA. 95 

not yield his ground. To hold that, he felt to be 
of the first importance. He likewise knew that he 
should he attacked by the Indians a second time, if 
he did not attack them ; and on the third day follow- 
ing lie ventured an assault, whereby he lost a couple 
of men more, making four in all — a loss such as no 
company of the size of that one could well bear. He 
describes the two battles in a letter to Col. Henderson, 
as follows : — 

" Apeil 1st, 1775. 

" Deab Colonel, — After my compliments to you, 
I shall acquaint you with my misfortunes. On March 
the 25th, a party of Indians fired on my company about 
half an hour before day, and killed Mr. Twitty and his 
negro, and wounded Mr. Walker very deeply, but I 
hope he will recover. 

*' On March the 28th, as we were hunting for pro- 
visions, we found Samuel Tale's son, who gave us an 
account that the Indians had fired on their camp on the 
27th day. My brother and I went down and found 
two men killed and scalped — Thomas McDowell and 
Jeremiah McPeters. I have sent a man down to all 
the lower companies, in order to gather them all to the 
mouth of the Otter Creek. My advice to you, sir, is 
to come, or send, as soon as possible. Your company 
is desired greatly, for the people are very uneasy, but 



96 DANIEL BOONE. 

are willing to stay and venture their lives with you ; 
and now is the time to flustrate their (the Indians') 
intentions, and keep the country whilst we are in it. 
If we give way to them now, it will ever be the case. 
This day we start from the battle-ground for the mouth 
of the Otter Creek, where we shall immediately erect a 
fort, which will be done before you can come, or send ; 
then we can send ten men to meet you, if you send for 
them. 

" I am, sir, your most obedient, 

" Daniel Boone. 

*'N. B. "We stood on the ground ana guarded our 
baggage till day, and lost nothing. We have about 
fifteen miles to Cantrick's, at Otter Creek." 



The modesty of the writer is to be particularly 
noticed ; he is at no pains to bring himself forward, 
if indeed he once thought about himself, or his 
deeds, at all. On the same day on which the above 
letter was written, the fort alluded to was com- 
menced. The party sprang to the work with earn- 
est vigor, feeling how important its completion was 
to their own safety. The structure was built close 
by the river, one end resting on the bank, and the 
whole extending back for a distance of two hundred 
and sixty feet. It was a hundred and fifty feet 



TRANSYLVANIA. 97 

wide. The style of it is as follows ; large pieces of 
timber were sliarj^ened and one end driven into the 
ground, very much like common pickets, and within 
the enclosure thus formed were the several cabins 
and huts of the party. It may not seem as if such 
a defence could amount to a great deal, but it did, 
for all that ; the Indians knew nothing of the 
hiding places that might be stowed away in this 
rude fort, while, at the same time, it afforded the 
settler a better advantage over his artful enemy ; 
the forest and the cane-brake were well understood 
by the savage, who there had everything on his 
side : but the fort was a puzzle whose key he did 
not know how to get hold of. Still, there was one 
strong objection to this fort : it was close by the 
woods at one end, thus affording the savage every 
chance to approach the settlers, and still be con- 
cealed from them. 

At each corner of this great enclosure was built 
a strong log hut, with its hewn ends projecting 
outwardly, thus making the whole a more enduring 
defence than before. The cabins, or huts, were 
likewise constructed side by side, with rough and 
heavy logs, making it next to impossible to over- 
come their united strength. Then the few gates 
needed were stout and heavy, difficult to be moved 
9 



98 DANIEL BOONE. 

at all, and capable of successfully resisting any- 
assault, even from overwhelming numbers. To 
build this fort required from the 1st of April till the 
14th of June. In other words, it was begun just 
before the battle of Lexington, and completed just 
before the battle of Bunker Hill. Important events 
were transpiring, at that time, as well on the sea- 
board as far back in the wilderness. One man lost 
his life at the hands of the Indians, while the work 
was going on, and that was all. The natives of the 
forest could not but regard the building of this fort 
among them, in the very heart of their noble hunt- 
ing-grounds, with greater jealousy even than the 
laying out of the road ; hence they were aroused to 
making concerted movements to destroy it and its 
white inmates together. To have lost but one man 
by them, during the progress of the work, therefore, 
was a great deal less misfortune than might reason- 
ably have been expected. 

Thus, then, were the projectors of Transylvania 
put in possession of their territory. A fort had been 
built in that remote wilderness, properly garrisoned, 
and successfully held against the assaults of the 
Indians. Boone, by this time, felt as if he would 
like to go back and see hi& wife and children again. 
To this end, he determined to leave the garrison 



TRANSYLVANIA. 99 

where they were, duly cautioning them against sur- 
prises at the hands of the savages, and impressing 
on them the necessity of having a certain amount of 
cleared land close by. 

We have not the particulars of this journey of 
Boone hack to Virginia ; it is enough to know that it 
was made in safety, and that his heart was gladdened 
once more to find himself in the arms of his beloved 
wife and children. He resolved, this time, to be 
separated from them no more. He meant, when he 
returned, to take them along with him. It shows a 
truly delicate trait of character in Boone, to wait 
until all due preparations had been made for his 
wife and children in the wilderness before he came 
to carry them out with him, and makes him appear 
to be anything but the rude and rough person usu- 
ally looked for in a pioneer. There was a delicacy 
about his noble nature that would well have become 
a woman. He had never asked his wife to accom- 
pany him, until he had first made all proper pro- 
vision for her comfort and safety. Now that the new 
fort at Boonesborough was completed, and defended 
by an armed and watchful garrison, he felt secure in 
the thought of taking his little brood out into the 
forest wilds, and knew, too, what a blessed influence 
the presence of wife and children would have over 



100 DANIEL BOONE. 

him. Tlie path westward was now open ; men and 
women could go forward in it and people the 
country. 

Boone's wife and daughters were all ready to 
start. How that journey was made, we have, unfor- 
tunately, no particular record. Boone himself says 
of it, in his narrative, only this, — that it was 
*' safe, and without any other difficulties than such 
as are common to the passage." They stood, at 
length, on the banks of the Kentucky Eiver. No 
white females had put their feet there before them. 
Of the women of this country, they were the pio- 
neers ; a young wife, and daughters in the very 
blush of girlhood and innocence. How rough and 
hard their woodland life was, it is not easy at this 
day to imagine. It was an unusual thing for any 
one then to be taken sick and die in his own bed ; 
when death overtook men in the forest, it was 
always a death of violence. In illustration of the 
feelings begotten of such a state of things, the fol- 
lowing impressive incident is related : 

" An old lady, who had been in the forts, was, 
not many years ago, describing the scenes she had 
witnessed in those times of peril and adventure ; 
and, among other things, remarked that, during the 
first two years of her residence in Kentucky, the 



TRANSYLVANIA. 101 

most comely sight she beheld was seeing a youiig 
man dyhig in his bed a tiatural death. She had 
been familiar with blood, and carnage, and death, 
but in all these cases the sufferers were the victims 
of the Indian tomahawk and scalping-knife ; and 
that on an occasion when a young man was taken 
sick and died after the usual manner of nature, she 
and the rest of the women sat up all night, gazing 
upon him as an object of beauty ! " 

That must indeed have been a rugged way of life 
which subjected women to trials like these ; which 
made it desirable even to see a person die in a bed, 
because death by the tomahawk and the scalping- 
knife had become so common. 

Boone brought out with him, on this return jour- 
ney to the fort, several of the families that turned 
back before, when the little party was assailed by 
the Indians. These families knew him well, had 
seen him tried in the fiery furnace of affliction, and 
were content to repose their safety in his keeping. 
But they had not all gone very far together, before 
they separated. The precise reason for this step is 
not known, and probably never will be. Boone 
pushed on, while the remainder, or the greater part 
of them, lagged behind. They lost their way. 
Their cattle and stock strayed away from them. 
9* 



102 DANIEL BOONE. 

They were like sheep without a shepherd. And 
after many reverses, sufferings, and irritating disap- 
pointments, they managed at last to reach the fort 
at Booneshorough by the pathway that was marked 
out for them. They had at least learned one lesson 
by this idle dissatisfaction ; they knew the worth of 
thje man they had deserted 

One fort naturally suggested another. Each was 
the nucleus, or center, for a wide settlement. This 
position of Boone being so strong, it lent encourage- 
ment to the rest to believe they might establish 
others equally strong. So they began to radi- 
ate. Pretty soon, there was a fort here, and 
another fort there ; yet the increase was steady 
and slow, for each new post was, at best, but a 
rash experiment. It was not so plain, even yet, 
that the settlements did not exist as much by 
the leniency of the Indians, as by the aid of anything 
else. Were they disposed, there was little doubt 
that they might at any time have overwhelmed the 
little band of white men with their numbers. 

Other men soon began to come into the fort now ; 
such men as Callaway, and Henderson himself. As 
soon as the latter arrived, it was apparent that 
Transylvania was a settlement in good earnest, and 
not a mere project in the brain or on paper. From 



TKANSYLVANIA. 103 

this time, work seemed to begin. The first thing 
was, to make the land produce something ; therefore 
they set about clearing away the forest in the 
vicinity of the fort, and ploughing it up for plant- 
ing corn. The work now looked like the work per- 
formed by the settlers of Jamestown, under Capt. 
John Smith. All was activity and bustle. There 
was hunting in the woods, and the settlers were of 
course chiefly sustained for a time by game ; but 
it would not be lono; before their wants would be 
answered from the soil. Sometimes the hunters 
carelessly wandered away from the fort, forgetful 
that the Indian watched when they were unguarded. 
Boone continued to caution them respecting this 
practise, and it is safe to assert that many a time 
they owed their lives to his supervising care and 
watchfulness. 



104 
CHAPTEK VI. 

TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 

GREAT deeds were done, during this same 
year, in the Atlantic Colonies. The two 
great battles of the Revolution had been 
fought — that of Lexington, and that of Bunker 
Hill — each of which was like a magnet, to draw 
to a focus the patriotic sentiments and fraternal feel- 
ings of the people of all the colonies. The settlers 
in far-off Kentucky heard the glorious news, and it 
warmed their hearts. Lexington had a voice for 
them like that of a trumpet, stirring their blood. In 
fact, one small party of hunters, who had camped 
down not far from the head-waters of the Elkhorn, 
testified their ardor and sympathy by naming the 
little settlement after the first battle-field for liberty, 
and by the name of Lexington it goes to this day. 

Then came still worse news, in the shape of proofs 
that the hostile British had allied themselves with 
the Indians. This was the hardest blow of all for a 
far-off and feeble settlement, for it might be now 
swept out of existence almost without a struggle. 
When the savages were left to resist the advano- 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 105 

ing white settlers alone, the latter could well flatter 
themselves that they had some small chance of car- 
rying their point in the end ; but to form an union 
with the armies of a powerful nation like Great 
Britain, w^as to give them a strength to which the 
handful of settlers could offer but a feeble resistance 
indeed. 

Not long after Col. Henderson arrived out among 
the settlers, he set in operation the plans long 
matured in his mind. He very well knew that his 
project of founding a new colony under the title of 
Transylvania, was an experiment that would prove 
distasteful to Governor Dunmore, of Virginia, and he 
therefore made all haste to give it such a shape and 
form as w^ould put it out of the Governor's power to 
successfully interfere with its fortunes. To this end, 
a land-office was speedily opened, where upwards of 
half a million acres were entered in a short space of 
time, and titles were issued from the office to settlers 
m the name of " The Proprietors of the Colony of 
Transylvania, in America." It was likewise stipu- 
lated, in these new titles, that a certain portion of 
the rents of lands should be held in reservation for 
the proprietors of the colony, perpetually. There 
would have been a great deal of trouble with these 
rents, in time, had the colony kept its original form 



106 DANIEL BOONE. 






and character ; but when it had performed the work 
for which it came into existence, it was superseded 
by better arrangements. 

Henderson saw how necessary it was to set up politi- 
cal authority, or at least the show of it, against that of 
Virginia; such a step would both impart dignity and 
character to the new project, and inspire the settlers 
themselves with greater confidence in its reality and 
success. There were by this time four settlements. 
Henderson threw himself on his dignity, styled him- 
self the President of the colony, and formally con- 
vened a Legislature. This was the first leoislative 
body ever held in the western country. Its mem- 
bers represented an immense territory, though but a 
trifling constituency. Every one of them was, of 
necessity, taken from a stockade fort ; there were no 
other collections of houses, or cabins, anywhere in 
the vast tract they had set out to subdue and 
populate. 

President Henderson called on them, in his proc- 
lamation, to meet and form a State. The delegates 
met in the log fort at Boonesborough, agreeably to 
the call, on the 23d day of May, 1775. Of the. list 
of members sent from Boonesborough — itself one, 
and the chief, of the four settlements — Daniel 
Boone stood naturally at the head. The people all 



TROUBLE TVTTH THE INDIANS. 107 

had confidence in liim, whether as a leader or a 
legislator. His brother, Squire Boone, was also a 
member of this first legislative body, and so was 
Col. Callaway. These three men were well-tried, 
and friends in the strongest sense. The Legislature 
was convened within the fort, which thus became the 
capitol of the vast territory. Boone was one of the 
most marked men in the whole body ; but John 
Floyd, who was sent from another settlement, was 
hardly less so. The latter was of excellent figure, 
tall and slim, w^ith a dark complexion, and eyes of a 
peculiar and powerful expression ; he was esteemed, 
in the highest sense, a true Virginia gentleman. 

The first act, on opening this legislative body 
within the walls of the fort, was to offer prayer, 
asking the blessing of heaven on so great an 
undertaking. Eev. John Lythe officiated. The 
scene must have been a solemn and impressive one 
to the minds of all present. A mere handful of 
men, assembled in the heart of a scowling wilder- 
ness — Indians compassing them around, on this side 
and that — the Governor of the colony out of which 
they came hostile to their scheme — and the power- 
ful British Government just lifting its hand to 
smite them as a feeble settlement had not been 
smitten before: it is not to be denied that every 



108 DANIEL BOONE. 

man of them felt the need of some mighty arm to 
stay them in an hour like that, and that they fer- 
vently sent up their hearts' supplication for divine 
sympathy and assistance. 

It is somewhat remarkable, the style and spirit 
of the Address sent in to this raw assembly by 
President Henderson. He tells them that he well 
understands how small the population is which 
they represent, — numbering not more than one 
hundred and fifty in all, but he assured them that 
they are laying the founcTation for an edifice that 
may endure for all time. And he likewise showed 
himself a true democrat, in his speech, when alluding 
to the real source of all power ; for, says he, " if 
any doubt remain among you with respect to the 
force and efiiciency of whatever laws you now or 
hereafter make, be pleased to consider that all power 
is originally in the people; make it their interest, 
therefore, by impartial and beneficent laws, and you 
may be sure of their inclination to see them enforced." 
The Declaration of Independence, written and sub- 
scribed to the following year, contained precisely the 
same popular spirit 

Gov. Dunmore, of course, opposed the doings of 
this Transylvania Colony with all the power he 
could; but his opposition was comparatively very 



I 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 109 

slight, ill consequence of the troubles that sur- 
rounded him at home. The Governor did fulminate 
a proclamation, or something of that sort, against 
them, but it produced no visible effect ; the settlers 
themselves did not care for it, and the Indians, as 
they well knew, could not understand it. To this 
proclamation Col. Henderson boldly replied, saying 
that the "character of his settlers would derive 
little advantage " from comparison even with that 
of the Governor himself I And Henderson then 
makes a shrewd appeal to the selfish interest of the 
men around him ; he speaks quite strongly of " the 
wanton destruction of our game, the only support of 
life among many of us, and for want of which the 
country would be abandoned ere to-morrow, and 
scarcely a probability remain of its ever becoming the 
habitation of any Christian people." The Legisla- 
ture voted a reply to the President's address ; the 
substance of which was, that they had a perfect right 
to pass laws for their own safety and convenience, 
and that every colony had the same right of self- 
government. This was the assertion of genuine 
democracy, even in the wilds of Kentucky. 

Daniel Boone, as a legislator, did his part along 
with the rest. The particular subject to which he 
was attracted, was the preservation of game for those 
10 



110 DANIEL BOONE. 

wlio chose to liunt for it; and on the very first day of 
the session he introduced a hill for the hetter pre- 
serving of game, and was himself made chairman of 
the committee to which it was referred. He also 
proposed a measure for improving the hreed of 
horses ; and its results may be seen everywhere in 
Kentucky to this day. 

The little Legislature likewise had tender reo;ard 
for its dignity. One of the men in the fort, named 
John Guess, having offered a wanton insult to Col. 
Callaway, the sergeant-at-arms was ordered to bring 
the offender into the presence of the assembly for 
proper discipline, and to be made an example of. 
Besides this, a law was passed making it punishable 
for a person to practise profane swearing or sabbath- 
breaking; these backwoods settlers were as exact 
almost as the Puritans, whose rigid sentiments and 
customs suggest only the loftiest and most unbend- 
ing morality. 

Three short days sufficed for the sitting of the 
assembly. The men who composed the body had 
work to do elsewhere, and they knew better than to 
fool away their time after the manner of legislators 
in these modern days. Having enacted such laws ^as 
they thought the condition of the new society 
demanded, they broke up their sitting, and each man 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. Ill 

went his own way. Prayer, however, was oflPered hy 
the clergyman when they rose, as when they com- 
menced their brief session. This was a model little 
Legislature. Its influence on the other settlements 
became visible forthwith. A platform, as it were, 
had been erected, and all seemed glad to have it to 
stand on. The very statement of their political and 
social principles, however simply and unpretendingly 
made, would strengthen them all in their new posi- 
tion, and hold them more firmly together as a settle- 
ment. 

The momentous year, 1776, was now dawning. 
For the fortunes of the North American Continent 
it was full of significance. Early this year, the 
family of Col. Callaway emigrated, and were gladly 
received into the fort at Boonesborough. There were 
two young daughters, besides the mother. The 
family of Col. Benjamin Logan also came out from 
Virginia, and settled at Logan^s Fort. Thus 
woman's gentle influence was working in favor of the 
permanence of these frontier settlements, and begin- 
ning to hallow the rude scenes of a life in the woods. 
The beautiful season of spring came and went, cov- 
ering the plains and prairies with flowers without 
number. Then the heats of summer began to make 
themselves felt, and the forest showed the usual 



112 DANIEL BOONE. 

signs of the solstitial seasons. There were no 
orchards, or gardens, planted around them then, and 
hence the advance of the summer did not betray 
itself to their eyes by the wilting of leaves, the 
ripening of vegetables, or the gradual swelling of 
fruits ; nothing but the great forest, whose depths no 
human eye could penetrate, made signals of the pas- 
sage of the year. 

A circumstance transpired on the 14th of July, of 
this year, that caused a great excitement throughout 
the settlement. The narrative has already been well 
given by Mr. Peck, in his sketch of Boone's life, 
drawn from the statement of John Floyd, and from 
sources additional ; and we prefer to give it in the 
words of Mr. Peck himself : — 

On the 14th of July, 1776, Betsey Callaway, her 
sister Frances, and Jemima Boone, a daughter of 
Capt. Boone, the two last about fourteen years of 
age, carelessly crossed the river opposite to Boones- 
borough in a canoe, at a late hour in the afternoon. 
The trees and shrubs on the opposite bank were 
thick, and came down to the water's edge. The 
girls, unconscious of danger, were playing and 
splashing the water with the paddles, until the 
canoe, floating with the current, drifted near the 
shore. Five stout Indians lay there concealed ; one 




GIRLS TAKEN CAPTIVE BY INDIANS. 



I 



TEOUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 113 

of whom, noiseless and stealthy as the serpent, 
crawling down the bank until he reached the rope 
that hung from the bow, turned its course up the 
stream, and in a direction to be hidden from the 
fort. The loud shrieks of the captured girls were 
heard, but too late for their rescue. The canoe, 
their only means of crossing, was on the opposite 
shore, and none dared to risk the chance of swim- 
ming the river, .under the impression that a large 
body of savages was concealed in the woods. 

" Boone and Callaway were both absent, and 
night set in before their return and arrangements 
could be made for pursuit. Next morning, by day- 
light, we were on the track, but found they had 
totally prevented our following them, by walking 
some distance apart through the thickest canes they 
could find. We observed their course, and on which 
side we had left their sign, and travelled upwards 
of thirty miles. We then imagined that they would 
be less cautious in travelling, and made a turn in 
order to cross their trace, and had gone but a 
few miles before we found their tracks in a buffalo 
path ; pursued and overtook them on going about 
ten miles, just as they were kindling a fire to cook. 

*' Our study had been more to get the prisoners, 
without giving the Indians time to murder them 
10* 



114 DANIEL BOONE. 

after they discovered us, than to kill them. We 
discovered each other nearly at the same time. 
Four of us fired, and all rushed on them, which 
prevented them from carrying away anything except 
one shot-gun, without ammunition. Mr. Boone and 
myself had a pretty fair shot, just as they hegan to 
move off. I am well convinced I shot one through, 
and the one he shot dropped his gun ; mine had 
none. The place was very thick with canes, and heing 
so much elated on recovering the three little hroken- 
hearted girls, prevented our making further search. 
We sent them off without their moccasins, and not 
one of them with so much as a knife or a toma- 
hawk." 

In the "Life of Boone," by Filson, who represents 
that he took down every item from the lips of the 
great pioneer, this incident — so characteristic of the 
father and the man, and so well calculated to show 
forth the leading traits of his nature — is disposed 
of in a very few lines. He merely says that two 
of Col. Callaway^s daughters and one of his own 
were taken prisoners, near the fort ; that he at once 
set out in pursuit of the Indians, with only eight 
men ; that, after a pusuit of two days, he and his 
party overtook them, killed two of them, and recov- 
ered the girls. It is a meagre story, and undeserv- 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 115 

ing of the character and deeds of the forest monarch 
whose life it so fairly illustrates. 

It so happened — or else it was so arranged before- 
hand — that on this very same 14th of July on which 
the three young girls were stolen from the vicinity 
of the fort, the Indians all around had divided their 
forces into distinct parties, and determined to make 
a series of attacks on the different settlements, when- 
ever, and as often, as circumstances would allow. 
They beheld the increase of the white numbers with 
great jealousy. They dreaded, too, the protection 
the forts gave them. If they could be allowed to 
fight on their own ground, and in their own way, it 
would all be to their advantage ; but this placing the 
whites under cover was something they could not 
understand. These attacks were kept up from that 
time forward, with great regularity. No day was 
free from suspicion that the Indians were close at 
hand ; no night was so calm and quiet that all slept 
in their beds without dreams of a stealthy foe in 
their midst, with tomahawk and scalping-knife bran- 
dished above their heads. 

At no time in the progress of the settlement of 
Kentucky, did the scales of her existence as a colony 
hang so evenly balanced. A feather on this side or 
that might have changed the result. It is to be con- 



116 DANIEL BOONE. 

fessed that nothing but the protection of an 
Almighty Power saved it from total destruction. 
The presence of a man like Daniel Boone upon the 
field of action, at a critical time like that, was cer- 
tainly providential ; with his thorough knowledge 
of the Indian character, with his perfect familiarity 
with the life of the backwoodsman, and, above all, 
with his cool courage and indomitable perseverance, 
it is not to be denied that the new colony must inev- 
itably have gone to pieces, truly dissolved in the fer- 
ment of the times, but for his presence in the midst 
of its members. When dangers pressed most closely 
around them, Boone was ready at hand to extricate 
them ; but when, as now and then was the case, 
fears of danger were somcAvhat allayed, no man could 
appear less intrusive or more modest than he. 

It was very difficult, under all the circumstances, 
for Col. Henderson to obtain hona fide purchasers 
for his lands. Settlers could not be found in plenty, 
when, in addition to the precarious nature of the 
title, there was the great danger of being cut off in 
an unseen hour by the savage. Very little could be 
offered them by way of inducement to come out and 
cultivate, or even to purchase, the Transylvania 
lands. A man could not be out plowing, but a 
bullet from the Indian whizzed by his ear, dis- 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 117 

charged from an unseen quarter. If he secured his 
over-worked and weary cattle at night, it was to find 
that they had been shot or stolen before the morning. 
He worked in doubt and danger constantly. Every 
cracklino; of the bouo;hs started new fears in his 
heart. He felt security at no hour, in no place. The 
peaceful pursuits of agriculture were attended witli 
nearly as much danger and anxiety as war itself. 

Then, too, the alliance of the British with the 
Indians, at this critical juncture — a measure that 
was freely and indignantly condemned at the time by 
the best minds in the English Parliament — wrought 
powerfully against the fortunes of this frontier 
settlement. This movement on the part of the ene- 
mies of the Americans, so bloody and barbarous in its 
results, could not but infuse new courage into the 
heart of the red man ; he felt now that he had a 
powerful friend at his back, and that he might dis- 
pute the occupation of the forest with the newly-come 
colonist, with a certain hope of success. There is no 
telling how much encouragement to resist the peace- 
ful white settler the conduct of the British ministry 
lent the tribes of western Indians, at this particu- 
lar time. To add to the embarassment and dano-er 
of the hour, numbers of the settlers left again for 
Virginia, unwilling to endure the constant alarms 



118 DANIEL BOONE. 

til at were sounded at every hour both of the night 
and day. Only the brave fellows stayed behind ; 
those who, having once taken hold of the plough, are 
not in the habit of turning their backs upon their 
undertaking. 

Of all the places at which the Indian aimed his 
hatred, the Boonsborough Fort was the chief. Here 
he thought the whole white power was centered. 
Here, too, his British companions-in-arms taught 
him to look for the neatest danger to his rule and his 
land. Hence he watched every moment in its vicin- 
ity with a wily temper indeed. Whenever he could 
find the occupants of the fort in the least degree 
exposed, he did not fail to make his cruelty felt and 
remembered. 

It was a long and gloomy winter to the Tran- 
sylvania colonists, this of 1775 and '76. The story 
was now an old one, that the enmity existing between 
the colonies and the old country had become perma- 
nent and irreconcilable. One side was only strug- 
gling for an independent existence, and the other for 
an iron supremacy. In their loneliness, the handful 
of brave men who remained to defend the forts, 
found it exceedingly difficult to pass away the time 
contentedly. They were obliged, however, to oc- 
cupy themselves chiefly with watching against 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 119 

assaults of the enemy, and providing for the worst 
contingencies that might arise. The state of things 
along the Atlantic coast was truly lamentable ; in 
the far-off wilderness it was scarcely less so. Yet 
there was one man who bravely stood his ground, 
let the clouds gather never so densely ; and his lofty 
hopefulness, as well as his steady and reliable 
courage, lifted up the rest as by main strength. It 
is not necessary to say that that man was Daniel 
Boone. From so early a day he had learned the 
lesson of relying on himself, that he could not be 
disheartened or discouraged with all the world com- 
bined against him. There were great men rising 
above the heads and shoulders of the people at the 
East, but none eclipsed him for that serene and 
benignant greatness which sheds a peaceful lustre all 
around its path. It was manifestly in the distinct 
design of Providence, that while the men along the 
Atlantic border were uniting in a giant effort to repel 
the tide of foreign oppression, there should be at 
least me true man on the extreme West, in the very \ 
heart of the wilderness, too, who w^as working just as 
nobly and effectively for the spread of the same free- 
dom which his brethren were defending at the East. 
The numbers at the fort were fast getting thinned 
out ; others did not come to supply their places, as 



120 DANIEL BOONE. 

was expected. With the troubles at home that 
engaged their attention, they thought but little of 
going out into a wilderness to encounter more. It 
was well known to the Indians, also, that there 
were fewer white men at the fort during the winter 
than usual, and they therefore grew bolder every 
day, coming closer and watching the movements of 
the garrison more narrowly ; so that it was all a 
man's life was worth, to go outside the enclosure, 
whether armed or unarmed. Numerous encounters 
took place near the settlement, in the course of the 
winter ; which General George E. Clarke — a re- 
markable man, who had just been commissioned to 
go out against the Indians — noted briefly in his 
military journal, thus : — 

"Dec. 25. — Ten men, going to the Ohio for pow- 
der, met on the waters of the Licking Creek by Indi- 
ans, and defeated. John G. Jones, William Graden, 
and Josiah Dixon were killed. 

"Dec. 29. — A large party of Indians attacked 
McClelland's Fort, and wounded John McClelland, 
Charles White, Robert Todd, and Edward Worthing- 
ton, — the two first mortally. 

" Dec. 30. — Charles White died of his wound. 

" Jan. 6, '77. — John McClelland died of his wound. 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS. 121 

" March 5. — Thomas Shores and "William Ray- 
killed at the Shawanese spring. The Indians attempted 
to cut off from the fort a small party of our men ; 
a skirmish ensued ; we had four men wounded, and 
some cattle killed. A small party of Indians attacked, 
killed, and scalped Hugh Wilson. A large party of 
Indians attacked the stragglers about the fort." 

This is about the substance of the winter's expe- 
riences. It was nothing but a series of surprises and 
butcheries, of alarms and murders. No hope was 
extended the lonely settlers by their friends in Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina, for the sky was gloomy 
enough for them at home. Many despaired of the 
future, believing their prospects of success in those 
wilds utterly worthless. They thought sorrowfully 
of their wives and families, left behind in the old 
colony, and many a time wished themselves secure 
in the homes from which they had departed. And 
no man of them loved wife or children more fondly 
than Boone ; yet, through all the darkest trials of 
the time, and in the midst of the most appalling 
dangers, he stood steadfast and calm, resting on that 
sure and lofty hope that always shed its light over 
his soul. 

11 



122 



CHAPTEE YII. 

BATTLES AND SIEGES. 

THEEE were but three forts in Kentucky, at 
the time of which we are speaking ; that at 
Boonesborough, which was the most impor- 
tant one, — that at Harrodsburgh, — and what was 
known as Logan's Fort. At Boonesborough there was 
a garrison of but twenty-two men ; at Logan's Fort 
of only fifteen ; and Harrodsburgh held sixty-five, 
— more than both the others together. That is, 
there were only one hundred and two men to hold 
the entire frontier against the assaults of Indians 
and British combined ; and by the treaties that had 
been formed between the latter and the former, it 
was easy for a mixed army to be precipitated upon 
this little handful of settlers from the line of posts 
along to the north, that would crush them out of 
existence. It is said that about three hundred of 
the settlers had gone back to Virginia again, either 
disheartened at the prospects, or grown too timid to 
remain and hold their position. This of course 
entailed more severe service on the few who remained 
at their post ; they were on the watch continually ; 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 123 

all had to take their turns, and take them pretty 
often, too. 

At this juncture, those troubles that had been 
growing between the government of Virginia and 
the Transylvania Colony, came to a head. The 
crisis was brought on by the over-anxiety of the set- 
tlers to establish the title to their lands. Somehow 
the impression was becoming general that Gol. 
Henderson could not hold the tract he had been 
parcelling out to .the rest, except perhaps against 
the Indians ; and that the Virginia government 
would at last step in and claim the rights that w^ere 
vested in itself as the primary owner and disposer 
of the w^hole. 

The truth was, there were two parties in this 
matter ; the settlers from North Carolina were of 
Scotch descent, and had a feeling of devotion to 
their leader above all others, — while those from 
Virginia believed only in the supremacy of their own 
government. Virginia, too, had long looked Avith 
jealous Avatchfulness upon a man like Henderson, 
who had the boldness to set up a separate govern- 
ment of his own, calling himself the head, or Presi- 
dent ; nor w^as it at all to her liking that he took it 
upon himself to parcel out valuable tracts of land 
to whose title she made sole claim, and property in 



124 DANIEL BOONE. 

which she was resolved should be dispensed only 
through her. By her charter, obtained from the 
British Government, Virginia laid claim to the 
whole of Kentucky, and neither Col. Henderson, 
nor any other man, could successfully deprive her 
of her royal inheritance. Seeing how matters 
stood between the proprietors of Transylvania and 
the government of Virginia, a great many of those 
who had occupied lands were naturally undecided 
which side to take ; while party feeling, on the other 
hand, began to rage to an extent that foreboded 
nothing but danger. 

Fortunately, however, either through the com- 
manding influence of Henderson himself, or in con- 
sequence of the feeling that such a man deserved at 
least a testimonial of public gratitude for the services 
he had performed, while Virginia openly declared his 
title to the lands null and void, she made a compro- 
mise by which his individual claim was asserted to 
be good against the Indian owners ; and he was 
afterwards presented with a grant twelve miles 
square, located on the Ohio. Boone hated and 
despised all these men who had come out from the 
mother colonies for the sake of speculating in lands ; 
and the extreme anxiety betrayed by many about their 
titles, disgusted him with the conduct of men whose 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 125 

selfish interests alone governed them. These troubles, 
added to those occasioned by the Indians, were enough 
to dishearten any but a thoroughly brave and hopeful 
man. A large portion of the settlers signed and for- 
warded a petition to the authorities of Virginia, 
which was called, "A petition of the inhabitants, and 
some of the intended settlers, of that part of North 
America, now denominated Transylvania ; " the 
object of the same being to express their continued 
attachment to the government of the parent colony, 
to set forth the deceit that had been practised upon 
them by Col. Henderson and the other self-styled 
proprietors of the lands, and to declare that the 
lands still belonged, in their judgment, to his 
majesty, the King of England ; and that they were, 
as heretofore, his true and loyal subjects. One pas- 
sage in the petition we quote, as best showing the 
spirit of the whole : — 

" And, as we have the greatest reason to presume 
that his majesty, to whom the lands were deeded by 
the Six Nations for a valuable consideration, will 
vindicate his title, and think himself at liberty to 
grant them to such persons and on such terms as he 
pleases, your petitioners would, in consequence 
thereof, be turned out of possession, or obliged to 
purchase their lands and improvements on such 
11* 



126 DANIEL BOONE. 

terms as tlie new grantee or proprietor might think 
fit to impose ; so that we cannot help regarding the 
demands of Mr. Henderson and company as highly 
unjust and impolitic in the infant state of the settle- 
ment, as well as greatly injurious to your peti- 
tioners, who would cheerfully have paid the considera- 
tion at first stipulated by the company whenever their 
grant had been confirmed by the crown, or otherwise 
authenticated by the Supreme Legislature." 

They therefore " humbly expect and implore " to 
be taken under the protection of the Colony of Vir- 
ginia, and beseech its interposition in their behalf, 
that they may not be made sufferers by the imposi- 
tion of the gentlemen styling themselves proprietors, 
who, " the better to effect their oppressive designs, 
have given them the color of a law, enacted by a 
score of men, artfully packed from the few advenr 
turers who went to see the country last summer, 
overawed by the presence of Mr. Henderson." 

Virginia, through her Supreme Legislature, 
declared that the titles of the Transylvania Com- 
pany were null and void, and the colony vanished, 
as a colony, into thin air at once. And thus ended 
the plan of the settlement in Kentucky known by the 
name of Transylvania. 

There was by this time a concerted movement 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 127 

among the savages to make a descent on the fort at 
Boonesborougli ; tliey had waited and watehed to see 
what the great strength of the pioneers consisted in, 
and now, having perfectly satisfied themselves, they 
resolved to surround the whites in a body and 
endeavor to destroy them. The garrison at Boones- 
borougli was exceedingly small ; the Indians came 
down upon them in numbers exceeding one hundred. 
Of course there was dangerous odds against the 
whites. They made their attack on the 15th of 
April. It was a sudden and terrible one. Their 
savage natures had been aroused to the highest pitch 
of excitement. They dashed, like waves upon rocks, 
against the feeble enclosure of the settlers in the 
wilderness. The forest rang again with their shrill 
shouts and cries. Their lithe and dusky forms 
peopled the solitudes as the white men had never 
seen them peopled before. They came on with 
the yells of infuriated beasts, striking terror into 
the hearts of all who heard them. 

It appeared, for a time, as if the little fort was 
much too frail to withstand the wild onset. They 
behaved as if nothing could keep them from pour- 
ing in a living stream into the fort, and visiting the 
little garrison with a general massacre. The white 
settlers made sorry work among them with their 



128 DAKEEL BOOKE. 

unerring rifles. How many of the savages ^Ye^e 
thus picked off was never known ; for they were 
careful to conceal their losses by carrying off their 
dead and wounded. Yet it was believed, with 
good reason, that they were sore sufierers. Their 
unexpected losses served to make them still more 
ferocious. They raved and stormed against the 
entrenched garrison with the fury of desperation. 
But it was to no purpose. The skill and coolness 
of the white man were more than a match for the 
Indian. 

They sullenly turned their backs, therefore, and 
plunged into the shadows of the wilderness. Now 
they knew what it was to meet the fire of the brave 
white settlers. It must have tasked them still more 
to bear their dead away with them, especially when 
so sorely fatigued with the results of a vain 
and bloody assault against a determined foe. 
That, however, was their usual practise, which 
they would have followed in the present case 
if it had cost every one of them his life. The 
evidences of the desperate combat were all around 
the locality. The garrison to be sure, did not lose 
but a single man, which was a very slight misfor- 
tune for them, under such threatening circumstances. 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 129 

They must have thought themselves fortunate to 
have remained masters of their position. 

The savages were not satisfied with this ; it only 
whetted their appetite for more. Like the wolf, 
having once tasted blood, they would follow up 
their ferocious instincts wherever they led them. 
The men within the fort looked for a speedy 
renewal of the attack, nor were they disappointed 
in their expectations. The Indians came out of the 
forest in dense and dark legions, on the 4th of July. 
They numbered a larger mass than ever. They 
came and sat down before the rude fortress as for a 
regular siege, resolved either to fight or starve their 
determined enemy out. The numbers stood about 
two hundred Indians to one white man ; overwhelm- 
ing odds, truly, and apparently discouraging. 

For forty-eight hours the savages kept up the 
siege. Every white man's head that was exposed 
in the least, was during that period in imminent 
danger. They howled and shrieked, they Avhooped 
and yelled in their barbarous frenzy, expecting that 
the deadly terror they would thus strike into the 
hearts of the white men within the fort would 
somehow lead to their easier overthrow. The wild 
beasts themselves, coming from their forest lairs, 
could not have made night more hideous than did 



130 DANIEL BOONE. 

these Indians, with their unearthly yells and cries. 
Those within the fortress, however, were not inspired 
with terror, but rather with desperation. Too well 
they knew that this was their last chance to hold or 
lose all — and they might the latter. The fighting 
between the opposing parties, during the time the 
place was thus besieged by the Indians, was as 
close as any that had yet occured. The little gar- 
rison came off, however, with the loss of but a 
single man, as in the previous contest ; fewer were 
wounded, too, than before. The courage of Daniel 
Boone in this encounter was especially conspicuous ; 
he dared all that any brave man could dare, and 
exercised a wariness that made him an equal match 
even for the Indian. 

Soon after this, other settlers began to come into 
the forts, and were received with manifestations of 
the greatest joy. When a garrison was reduced to 
the dimensions of this, the slightest accession to its 
numbers could not but be hailed with delio;ht. 
Forty-five men arrived from North Carolina, in the 
last wTek of July, and a hundred more came from 
Virginia in the latter part of August ; making an 
accession of valuable men to the settlement really 
worth speaking of. All along through the summer 
and into the autumn, they continued to have skir- 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 131 

mishes with the Indians, but they always came out 
best from each encounter. There was no end, appa- 
rently, to the ingenuity practised by the savage in 
selecting the time and mode of his attacks. At any 
hour of the day, he was liable to beset the party of 
white men hunting in the forest ; and through the 
still night hours there was no cessation from fears 
of his presence. 

Boone was "^iiry and watchful. The red man 
himself was not more than a match for him in that 
respect. And in addition to this trait of caution 
and judgment, he possessed all the attributes of the 
highest courage. No mere military man could 
inspire followers with deeper confidence than he. 
He never hesitated to lead wherever any dared to 
follow. Still with all his rough experience with the 
savage, calculated, one would suppose, to harden 
his finer feelings and check the growth of his 
nobler nature, Daniel Boone never became infected 
with the atmosphere of his surroundings of cruelty ; 
he was just as ready to perform acts requiring per- 
sonal sacrifice, as ever ; he lost none of that sweet- 
ness, and simplicity, and truth which made his 
character the fresh and peculiar one it was. And 
that is saying much for the man who was exposed 
and tried as Boone was. 



132 DANIEL BOONE. 

As the Eevolutionary struggle progressed, and the 
distance between the old thirteen colonies and the 
mother country became greater and greater, the set- 
tlers on the western frontier were made to feel more 
keenly the suffering with which the British power 
was able to visit them. That power held in its 
grasp the ferocious impulses and revengeful incli- 
nations of a vast horde of savages, scattered all 
along the line of the western waters, and could at 
any time give them free rein to murder and devas- 
tate after their own peculiarly cruel methods. Nor 
did it scruple to employ these means, oftentimes 
making such work as caused a shudder of horror in 
the hearts of those at home who read the bloody 
tales. 

A man now appeared upon the field, who was 
destined to play a brilliant and important part in 
the early history of the western country. His 
name was George R. Clarke. No greater military 
man has ever associated his name with the annals 
of our early western settlements. As a brave man, 
he had long been familliarly known in the old 
Virginia colony, and he enjoyed the confidence of 
Lord Dunmore, the royal Governor, in a marked 
degree. The latter had even offered him a military 
commission under British authority, but that he had 



BATTLES AED SIEGES. 133 

nobly declined. He was a patriot by nature, and 
the only country he had learned to love was that 
on whose generous soil he was born. 

At once on the occurence of the crisis in the 
affairs of Transylvania, he came forward and 
assumed the authority and influence which belonged 
to him by nature. He was of the opinion that tlie 
claims to land, derived from Col. Henderson, would 
not stand against the claims of Virginia ; and his 
personal influence went so far as to convince the 
most of the settlers that his opinion on the subject 
was the only correct one. Therefore, when the 
settlers petitioned the Government of Virginia to 
take them under its protection, they united in 
sending General Clarke to present their request, 
and to represent all their wishes and interests. 
The Viro'inia Council for a Ion 2: time hesitated. 
They were asked to furnish the settlers with five 
hundred weight of powder, in case the latter should 
require it, in their defence against the Henderson 
party. But the Council were undecided whether 
they would be able to make a successful resistance 
against that party, in the event of an outbreak, or 
would be overwhelmed by them in their turn ; in the 
latter case, the powder would only be lost, which, at 
that particular crisis, the Virginia colony could ill 
12 



134 DAOTEL BOONE. 

afford ; nor, indeed, did it wish to precipitate a quar- 
rel with a strong party of frontiersmen, led by such 
a captain as Henderson. 

Still, they were forced to listen to the appeals of 
these settlers, in time, especially when their danger 
from the combined forces of the British and Indians 
was presented in such vivid colors. Unless the men 
on the frontier were aided very soon, they would be 
swept under by the engulfing wave whose crest was 
already raised over their heads. Gen. Clarke talked 
very plainly to them, telling them that " a country 
not worth defending was not worth claiming. '^ This 
latter argument appeared conclusive with them. He 
returned to Kentucky invested with large military 
authority, and proceeded at once to block out 
operations. 

There were three important garrisons on the north- 
western frontier, that were occupied by the British 
and Indians — at Detroit, Vincennes, and Kaskaskias. 
The young reader who is not familiar with their 
location, will do well to make himself acquainted 
with the same by referring to the map. Clarke saw 
that there was but one way by which to intimidate 
the savage, and that was by striking a vigorous and 
decisive blow at once. He therefore resolved to 
make a concerted attack on each of these three 



m 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. I3'5 

fortresses, surprising the garrison perhaps into a 
surrender. He wanted bold men to work with him. 
He looked around to find those, who, while as cau- 
tious and wary as the Indian himself, were still as 
fearless as lions to go out into an encounter. 

While in Virginia, he laid his plans before the 
leading men of the State, including Wythe, and 
Jefferson, and Henry — all of the greatest minds 
the Old Dominion ever produced. They encouraged 
it, and he felt new strength and resolution to pro- 
ceed. As soon as he got back to the west again, he 
set about making his arrangements to invest these 
well-equipped forts. He found the men who were 
ready to go with him and perform the work. Of 
these men, Daniel Boone stood foremost and first. 
On him he felt that he could rely. The man who 
had already gone successfully through two regular 
sieges at the hands of the Indians that swarmed in 
the wilderness, could not be the wrong one to clothe 
with authority in an undertaking like this. Boone, 
too, understood the nature and ways of the Indian. 
He was cool and sagacious. Having already 
fought the savage, he knew his mode of warfare, and 
could turn such knowledge to ready account. 

The enemy had not, by any means, either, been 
careful hitherto to keep quiet within the lines he had 



136 DANIEL BOONE. 

estaWished for himself ; on the contrary, the practise 
was to make continual irruptions on the peaceful set- 
tlers, surprising them when engaged in planting or 
sowing their seed, watching the chances to pick 
them off when out in the forest hunting for game, 
and managing to harass and keep them in perpetual 
fear, in every possible way. It had come to so dan- 
gerous a pass, that each settler was obliged to go out 
like an armory, his hunting-knife in his belt, his 
unerring rifle across his shoulder, and barely suffi- 
cient subsistence in his pouch to keep him alive to 
do the work he went forth to do. If he strolled a 
rod away from the fort where he belonged, he felt 
that he might be the perpetual target for an Indian 
lurking in the shadow of some tree. Hence the war 
was of a predatory character, each one for himself, 
and no hour safe from the probabilities of an 
attack. 

If the savages, too, felt an intense degree of hatred 
against the great fort at Boonesborough, which had 
so far stood its ground against all assaults, they felt 
no less respect and fear for the white man from whom 
it took its name. He was almost like the Great 
Spirit in their eyes. No other leader among the 
pale-faces ever inspired his forest enemies with such 
reverence ; they knew that he was not cruel and vin- 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 137 

dictive, like some of them, thougli there is no reason 
why, after the murder of his son by the Indians, he 
shoukl not have a heart as full of passion and 
revenge as the rest ; and there was something in his 
very presence withal, that impressed his character on 
their imaginations with the depth and strength of a 
being much above the mortal. 

The first thing done by Gen. Clarke was to select 
and organize a board of forest-rangers, or spies, who 
could track their solitary way in the deep wilderness, 
hover on the outskirts of the enemy, and fetch and 
carry reports with the utmost promptness and relia- 
bility. The payment for their services it was pledged 
by Clarke should be made by Virginia. All along 
the Ohio banks they travelled, taking their lives in 
their hands. The men of our time can have no 
conception of the perils with which they were envi- 
roned. Clad in their hunting toggery — mocassins, 
buckskin breeches, and a hunter's shirt of leather, 
and armed with the keen knife and inseparable rifle, 
they plunged into dense growths of forest, and 
tracked paths through the close-serried ranks of the 
cane, with the same sense of security with which the 
savage trod those wilds himself. The work to be done 
by the spy, therefore, courageous as it was in the 
largest sense, was attended with a great deal more 
12- 



138 DANIEL BOONE. 

danger on the western frontier, than within range of 
the enemy's sentinels on the Atlantic border. 

Prominent among all brave and memorable west- 
ern scouts, or spies, is the name of Simon Kenton. 
He performed a vast deal of invaluable work at 
this particular juncture. There was a secret cause 
for his thus taking to the perils and excitements of 
a spy among the Indian forts, which deserves narra- 
tion. Boone made choice of him immediately, con- 
fiding to him some of his deepest projects for the 
reduction of the enemy's fortresses and the 
defence of his own. Of a more sincere and beautiful 
friendship than that which existed between Boone 
and Kenton, the history of no early state, east or 
west, furnishes any example. The name of Simon 
Kenton — or Simon Butler, as it came to be — 
is indissolubly associated with that of Boone all over 
the west. Boone's choice of the man for the service 
required, showed the deepest insight on the part of 
the great Pioneer. 

Kenton, early in life, was deeply in love with a 
young woman, w^ho failed to return his passion. 
She preferred another beau to him. This was more 
than the hot blood of the young man could endure. 
When his lady-love called her friends together to 
witness the ceremony of her marriage, Simon Ken- 



fijt 



BATTLES AND SIEGES. 139 

ton was present, uninvited ; lie did not care to be 
invited ; he could witness that ceremony without 
going through a needless form of that kind. Of 
course his presence created much excitement in the 
bridal party, and, in the custom of those rude times, 
there was a tussle between the successful and unsuc- 
cessful young man, which resulted rather in the 
latter's discomfiture. He vowed vengeance, how- 
ever, and watched his opportunity. It was not long 
in coming round. The two young fellows met. 
Kenton got the better of his adversary, and used 
him savagely. Supposing he had taken his life, 
he fled for the shelter of the forest. Changing his 
name to that of Simon Butler, he entered on a life 
of wild excitement and reckless daring, which could 
be desired by no living mortal except, perhaps, to 
keep down internal excitements immeasurably 
stronger and deeper. There are a great many 
stories told, throughout the west, of his extreme 
sufferings in certain' cases, when he fell into the 
hands of the Indians. It is said that he was eight 
times compelled to run the gauntlet, which was no 
slight undertaking, nor holding out many chances 
of escape finally ; he was three times fastened to 
the stake ; and once he came very near being sac- 
rificed by a blow from an axe, or tomahawk. He 



140 DANIEL BOONE. 

stole a horse from the Indians once, and they not 
long afterwards caught him ; and the following 
account shows what kind of treatment he received 
from the moment he hecame a captive : — " After 
heating him till their arms were too tired to 
indulge that gratifying recreation any longer, they 
secured him for the night. This was done hy 
first placing him upon his hack to the ground. A 
pole was then laid across his hreast, and his hands 
tied to each end, and his arms lashed with thongs 
around it, the thongs passing under his hody so as 
to keep the pole stationary. After all this, another 
thong was passed around his neck, and the end 
of it secured to a stake in the ground, his head 
being stretched back so as not entirely to choke him. 
In this original manner he was left to pass the 
night." 



141 



CHAPTER yill 

A PRISONER. 



MOEE than once, Simon Kenton was instru- 
mental in saving Boone's life. Kenton 
was on the watch, one day, standing at 
the gate of the fort. He was about going forth on 
the service of a spy. His rifle was loaded, and he 
was otherwise equipped for his work. It was quite 
early in the morning. A couple of men belonging 
to the fort were out in the fields not far off, eno-ao-ed 
in hoeing. Suddenly Kenton observed that the 
men were fired upon. He knew instantly that Indi- 
ans were at hand. Finding themselves unhurt, the 
two men started and ran with all speed for the fort. 
The savages followed as rapidly. One of the poor 
fellows was overtaken within a few rods of the fort, 
and tomahawked in sight of Kenton himself. The 
latter put his rifle to his shoulder, drew the trigger, 
and the savage who had done the deed fell dead 
in his tracks. Hevenge was in swift pursuit. 

The Indians were very bold in approaching so 
near ; but they had learned not to fear the white 
man, from familiarity with his presence. Further- 



14:2 DANIEL BOONE. 

more, they were there in such strength that the risk 
they run was slight indeed. Boone was within the 
fort at the time Kenton fired his rifle with such 
effect at the Indian. The sound was an alarm for his 
practised ear, and, with ten trusty men, he 
started off after the savages. The latter did not 
run, hut seemed inclined to stand their ground. 
Boone and his little party were speedily fighting in 
the midst of them. Kenton's quick eye saw one 
savage in the act of taking deadly aim at Boone 
himself, and he shot him dead on the spot, before 
his bullet could perform its fatal errand. 

So sudden was the alarm — it being at an early 
hour of the morning, too — that Boone had thought 
only of making an instantaneous sally and driving 
the invaders off witli a dash ; he had not stopped to 
calculate in how large force they might be, nor 
what were the chances of his coming off victorious. 
He was struck aback with surprise, therefore, to find 
himself and his ten followers completely surrounded 1 
The hostile Indians had managed to place them- 
selves in considerable numbers between him and the 
fort ! There was but one way by wliich he might 
save himself, and that was by rushing first upon 
open destruction. He made a rush — such as only 
men like him ever dare to attempt — calling out to 



A PEISONER. 143 

his followers to fire upon the red-skins, and plunge 
into their ranks. They did as they were ordered ; 
and, but for the deadly fire of the Indians them- 
selves, who were prepared to resist such an onset, 
they would have cut their way through safely and 
Successfully. The Indians fired simultaneously with 
the rush the party made at them. Boone himself 
was wounded, and fell to the ground. Six others, 
also, received bullets from the savages' guns. An 
Indian at once dashed forward as the white men 
fell, and raised liis tomahawk to knock out the 
brains of the prostrate Pioneer ; but the keen eye 
of Kenton was upon him, and an unerring ball 
followed the course of the eye in a twinkling. 
Down came the Indian to the ground, biting the 
dust in the agony of death. Kenton was proving 
himself invaluable. Boone was carried into the 
fort with his leg broken ; the rest were also got in 
with great haste, and then the gates were shut fast 
against the foe. The Pioneer never forgot the obli- 
gations he owed to his generous preserver. It is 
true, he could not give them expression, yet they 
lived none the less deeply in his large and noble 
heart. 

This is but one of the many similar scenes that 
were enacted at that time on the frontiers of Ken- 



144 DANIEL BOONE. 

tucky. There was hardly any life but that which 
comprised alarms and surprises. All labor outside 
the fort was performed only under the protection of 
well armed guards, and at particular hours of the 
day. The land was held at the greatest possible 
cost, both of labor and endurance. Men slept on 
their rifles. They did not stir out without them. 
A watchful guard had to be kept all the time, lest 
a wily red fellow might by some chance stealthily 
creep up and surprise them. There were skirmishes, 
too, continually. Scarcely a week passed over, 
without one or more of them. 

The life at the fort would be deeply interesting, 
if it could only be told in minute detail, just as it 
was. We know that Boone was a silent man by 
habit, thoughtful, and disposed, even when he did 
talk, to say what he wished in few words, and mean- 
ing ones. It may readily be imagined, therefore, 
with what a silent interest he would listen to the 
reports of the scouts and spies as they came in from 
their tramps in the forest, telling what they had dis- 
covered in relation to the Indians or British. He 
would sit and work over his rifle, treating it with as 
much tenderness as if it had been his own child. 
They would tell of Indians they had spied, prowling 




INDIANS SURPRISING BOONE'S SITRVEYING PARTY. 



A PRISOXEK. 145 

about in this quarter or that, and the Pioneer^s eyes 
would instantly kindle with a new fire. Or he would 
hear their reports of some trail upon which they had 
unexpectedly come, and give their opinions as to 
where they thought it conducted, or what was the real 
meaning of it ; and his excited countenance spoke- 
more eloquently than words of the active working 
of his own thoughts. Any story about the Indians 
caught and held his attention. He was at home on. 
that subject, and continued to make it his chief 
study. AVhile his wounded leg troubled him, he 
kept close within the walls of the fort, spending his 
time in listening to the daily, and sometimes hourly, 
reports of the scouts that came in, and counselling 
for measures to be taken against assault and sur- 
prises, and going through the process of affection- 
ately cleaning his rifle even when it needed no such 
attention or care. Sometimes he grew impatient to 
find that, in the time of greatest need, he was not 
able to go out and perform that service of which he 
was once capable ; but immediately his old philosophy 
would return to his mind, and he became content to 
know that he had escaped even with his life, and 
that in good time all would be right again. 

Then when he got better of his wound, and Ms 
strength allowed him to go out as he used to do, it 
13 



146 DAOTEL BOONE. 

was pleasant to see with what a relish he threaded 
his way into the wilderness, where it was densest and 
darkest, watching the hend of every twig and hough, 
studying the appearance of the long wild-grass, 
keenly piercing the dim vista to see if it contained 
moving figures of men, cautiously secreting himself 
hehind a giant tree and watching for possible 
approaches of the enemy, running his glance like 
the motion of thought over the masses of cane-brake 
— impervious to other men's eyes, hut full of visible 
secrets to his — or, perhaps, falling in with some 
new comers on the road westward to the now well- 
known fort, and gladly offering to convoy them to 
the haven where they would desire most ardently 
to be. One fact was particularly characteristic of 
him ; that he was ready to perform labor that 
involved large personal sacrifices for others, when 
he cared little or nothing about doing aught for 
himself. 

Having been shut in for so many months in the 
fort without the means of making their usual sallies 
out for provisions of this and that sort, it naturally 
fell out that the garrison began pretty soon to suffer 
from the lack of salt. This is a necessary article in 
the line of subsistence, no one being able for a very 
long time to live without it, although Boone says of 



A PRISONER. 147 

himself that he did, during those long and solitary 
months when he was left alone in the wilds of Ken- 
tucky. The settlers at the fort came to the conclu- 
sion that something must be done, and done forth- 
with. They could not live much longer, at least in 
a state of comparative health, unless they could pro- 
cure salt. They well knew of certain places along 
tlie course of the streams, where salt was to be had 
in plenty, the wild beasts of the forest having 
revealed to them the important secret in the first 
place. Accordingly an expedition was planned to go 
out and procure at these places the much needed 
commodity. 

When a measure of this sort was to be taken, 
Boone was the man all ready to enlist in it. He 
did in this case ; in truth, he it was who most 
urgently counselled its necessity. A party of men, 
all abundantly armed, was made up for the expedi- 
tion. Who should — nay, who could, properly com- 
mand and pilot it, but Daniel Boone himself ? The 
rest instinctively looked up to him. as their leader, 
and would have appeared to follow him, even if 
some other man had been their nominal captain. 
Thirty men set forth. They knew full well what 
they were about to undertake, and went prepared 
with trusty rifles and stout hearts. 



148 DANIEL BOONE. 

Their destination was to what was known as the 
Blue Licks, one of the most famous and valuahle 
places for the free production of salt known in Ken- 
tucky. To protect this possession, the white settler 
would willingly have made as great sacrifices as he 
would to defend the fort itself. There are several 
springs that make up the Blue Licks, but the largest 
of them all is situated on the Licking Eiver — so 
named from the practise of the animals in coming 
there to lick the salt — which, at the present day, lies 
in Nicholas County, in the northeast corner of Ken- 
tucky. There was many a fierce and bloody con- 
flict fought at and near this place, and the entire 
neighborhood forms one of the most important of all 
the localities that helped make up, for Kentucky, 
the title of the " dark and bloody ground.'^ 

Splendid hotels, with numerous out-buildings, 
occupy the spot now, attracting to it the most gay and 
fashionable of all the pleasure-seekers of the land. 
It would hardly be recognized as the same spot 
which originated so many bloody encounters between 
the white settler and the ferocious red man of the 
forest. 

After a cautious and quite slow march — necessa- 
rily so, because of the unseen dangers that lurked 
everywhere around them — Boone and his brave 



A PRISONER. 149 

little band of thirty men arrived in safety, and with- 
out the loss of a single one of their number, at 
the place, and began immediate operations. They 
set their salt kettles in which to evaporate the water 
from the spring, and went about the task of manu- 
facturing the salt required for the use of the garri- 
son. It was important that the work should be 
done with great dispatch, for the moment the Indians 
found out what they were at, there would come an 
end to their operations. 

Sundry exciting incidents occurred while this little 
party were at the springs, and among the rest one 
which our government has thought worthy of pre- 
servation in stone, in a sculptured group ornament- 
ing the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. It 
is not altogether probable, or it would possess a 
deeper and truer interest. Evidently the story has 
been stretched to fit the imaginary character of 
Boone, instead of being given in the perfectly simple 
garb of truth. We tell it, however, in the very 
words it has been told in before : — 

" Boone, instead of taking part in the diurnal and 
uninterrupted labor of evaporating the water, per- 
formed the more congenial duty of hunting to keep 
the company in provisions while they labored. In 
this pursuit, he had one day wandered some distance 
13- 



150 DANIEL BOONB. 

from the bank of the river. Two Indians, armed 
with muskets — for thej had now generally added 
these efficient weapons to their tomahawks — came 
upon him. His first thought was to retreat. But 
he discovered, from their nimbleness, that this was 
impossible. His second thought was resistance, and 
he slipped behind a tree to await their coming 
within rifle-shot. He then exposed himself, so as to 
attract their aim. The foremost leveled his musket. 
Boone, who could dodge the flash at the pulling of 
the trigger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. The 
next object was to cause the fire of the second mus- 
ket to be thrown away in the same manner. He 
again exposed part of his person. The eager Indian 
instantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot, as before. 
Both the Indians, having thrown away their fire, 
were eagerly striving, but with trembling hands, to 
reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded 
their object. Boone drew his rifle, and one of them 
fell dead. The two antagonists, now on equal 
ground, the one unsheathing his knife and the other 
poising his tomahawk, rushed toward the dead body 
of the fallen Indian. Boone, placing his foot on the 
dead body, dexterously received the well-aimed tom- 
ahawk of his powerful enemy on the barrel of his 
rifle, thus preventing his skull from being cloven 



A PBISONER. 151 

by it. In the very attitude of firing, the Indian 
had exposed his body to the knife of Boone, who 
plunged it in his body to the hilt." 

Whether this narrated incident is strictly true or 
not, we think there were a great many acts in his ex- 
citing experience that better deserve to be preserved 
in stone, for the instruction and pleasure of future 
generations. It would make a vivid picture any 
w^here; but it is not deeply and radically illus- 
trative of the quality of the great Pioneer's calm 
and noble nature. It exhibits him merely as more 
powerful and skillful than the Indian ; whereas, it 
ought to be understood that he had no superior, 
in his own characteristics, even among wJiite meii. 
Eead the verses of Byron, to he found in the first 
chapter, over again. 

The party of salt makers remained at the Blue 
Licks, pursuing their avocations, for about a month. 
They worked hard, and watched continually, and 
in all that time they were not once interrupted. 
Meantime, the Indians had got intelligence of 
Boone's absence from the fort, and concluded it was 
the right time to make an attack on the place and 
capture it. It took them a very little while to 
make up a party of assailants and come down from 
the northward to carry out their design. They num- 



152 DANIEL BOONE. 

bered somewhat over one hundred, and all felt an 
exulting confidence in their success. On their way 
to the fort, they came near the very spot where the 
salt party were encamped. It was now early in the 
month of February. Boone was out in the forest 
hunting for those who were at work at the spring. 
He had failed to see any Indians for so long that he 
began to believe the danger was chiefly over ; men 
are apt to be careless in such matters at just the 
moment when there happens to be most need of 
w^atchfulness. 

This very party, that had been assembled for the 
capture of the fort, suddenly came upon him while 
thus alone in the wood. He spied them as soon as 
they saw him. The danger was imminent. His 
first swift thought was, How am I to escape ? Then 
seeing the utter impossibility of doing that, his 
next thought was, AVhat is the best mode of giving 
myself up ? The profoundest sagacity of the ex- 
perienced hunter was now put to the test. It was a 
long time since he had been a prisoner in the hands 
of the Indians, and it was then under very different 
circumstances, too, from the present ones. It was 
plain that resistance would be fruitless ; he would 
be certain to lose his life in attempting it ; he knew 
how much better it would be for him to surrender 



A PEISONEK. 153 

with entire willingness and grace, and how much 
more it would please the savages, too. Accord- 
ingly he made signs to them to let them under- 
stand that he was completely in their power, 
and that he should neither attempt to fly, nor offer 
resistance. 

Approaching them with perfect confidence and 
self-possession, he extended his hand in token of 
peaceful surrender. They surrounded him in a 
moment. He made them understand that he wil- 
lingly gave himself up to them ; they promised 
him that he should not he harmed, hut that the 
hest attentions should he paid him. Thus far, he 
was easy in his mind. 

But he reflected that the party at the spring 
ought to he provided for. 

They ought to he warned against the impending 
danger. How could it he done ? It was out of his 
power to communicate with them, much less to get 
to them ; and it was not less evident to him that, 
unless he could in some way interpose hetween his 
captors and them, the latter must he cut off" to a 
man. It tasked his utmost ingenuity, and called 
forth all his native coolness, to put his desire in a 
way of practical accomplishment. 

He very well understood that, as matters stood at 



154 DANIEL BOONE. 

that time, the party at the salt licks were sure to be 
surprised and captured, perhaps murdered ; it would 
be far better, therefore, even to seem timid, or cow- 
ardly, than to forego the exercise of every opportu- 
nity he might have to save them. The chief merit 
of his conduct was, under the stress of circumstances, 
to be looked for in the result, not in the exact means 
employed ; especially when those means were so 
extremely limited. 

No time was to be lost. Boone pretended to be 
perfectly satisfied with his captivity, and his conduct 
even flattered his captors, leading them to think he 
truly felt what he only feigned. Besides, he was 
known to them to be anything but a vindictive and 
bloodthirsty man, and they could not have laid a 
single charge of downright cruelty to his account. 
In brief, it took him a very little time to so work 
himself into their favor, that he shortly discovered 
he possessed decided influence over them. That was 
the happy moment for him to strike, and he failed 
not to improve it. He requested the Indians to 
allow him to conduct them to his party of white 
friends. They consented, of course watching his 
conduct closely. As they came up to the camp of 
the salt-boilers, the latter were surprised beyond 
measure to find their old leader in such company, 



A PRISONER. 155 

and, particularly, leading them on ; and their 
astonishment was still more heightened to see 
that he made signs to them not to offer any resist- 
ance to the savages, but to make up their minds to 
surrender. 

In spite of their wonder, however, they were obe- 
dient to the signals. They had unlimited confidence 
in their trusty leader, and would have done almost 
anything he bade them. Therefore they made no 
show of resistance. They stood still and allowed 
themselves to be taken willing captives. Boone had, 
without doubt, told his captors how much influence 
he possessed over his men, and they must have been 
powerfully impressed with some superstitious idea 
respecting his superiority. They could hardly be 
made to see how the mere giving of a sign by a 
single man, and he unarmed and in the power of his 
foes, could work so mysterious a result on the minds 
of a party of other men. At any rate, if Boone's 
friends had not been ready to obey his secret signal, 
there would have been fought on that spot a bloody 
battle between the two parties, and it is not easy to 
say that a single white man would have been left 
to tell the tale. The men were all carried off by 
the Indians, and well used as long as they remained 
prisoners. As Boone had been solemnly promised 



156 DANIEL BOONE. 

by the Indians — in case he would prevail on his 
friends to make no resistance — not one of them 
was injured. 

This piece of conduct on the part of Boone, how- 
ever, was very severely criticised hy some ; so much 
so that when he regained his liberty and returned to 
the settlements, he was subjected to a formal trial by 
court-martial. It happened very strangely, too, 
that his personal friends brought the charges of 
cowardice and improper conduct against him, — Col. 
Callaway and Col. Logan. He made a spirited de- 
fence, speaking for himself on the matter, and it 
proved effectual ; he was acquitted. Those who 
had been so ready to charge him with such a crime 
as that of treachery, or even to impute to him a 
spirit of cowardice, were now compelled to acknowl- 
edge the far-sighted shrewdness shown by him on 
this trying occasion, and to admit that, under the 
peculiar circumstances, no man could have acted 
with more circumspection and prudence. It would 
have been the easiest thing in the world to risk a 
battle, and nothing, either, w^ould so completely 
have secured the annihilation of every white man in 
the party. A rash man, with cowardly inclinations, 
would have been quite apt to do just what Boone's 



A PRISONER. 157 

superior coolness and sagacity told him was not best 
to be done. 

The Indians naturally revolved in their minds 
what was best to do next. Should they go forward 
and capture the Boonesborough fort, or should 
they take their prisoners along with them and pro- 
ceed through the wilderness to their own entrench- 
ments ? 

Boone was greatly exercised in his mind to 
know which they would do, for it was of the first 
importance ; had they attacked the fort, thus de- 
prived of the services of some of its best men, and 
especially without Boone's presence among the garri- 
son, nothing can be plainer than that the place would 
have been obliged to capitulate, and the entire body 
of settlers must have been cut off. The prudent 
policy of the great Pioneer, however, served to 
work in their favor, and so it must have appeared 
afterwards to the more reflecting of them. But in 
consequence of Boone's perfect truthfulness to them, 
and remembering that their present captives did not 
cost them a single life — no, nor even a single shot — 
they thought less about an enterprise like that of 
capturing the fort, and believed, if they troubled 
themselves about it at all, that it could be assailed 
just as successfully at another time. Here was 
14 



158 DANIEL BOONE. 

where the diplomacy of Daniel Boone, as betrayed 
in the peaceful surrender of his men, is especially to 
be noted and commended. 

All this occurred, it is to be remembered, in the 
inclement and trying month of February. At such 
a season as that, too, the prisoners were marched 
off together to Chillicothe, which was the leading 
settlement of the Indians in that section. 

The journey was made under as comfortable 
circumstances as could have been expected. The 
weather was extremely cold, however, and all 
endured more or less suffering from exposure. 
The white captives were treated with great leni- 
ency, and even with kindness ; they admitted that 
they had nothing to complain of. It could not have 
been so disheartening to them, either, knowing that 
their leader was a captive like themselves, ready 
to share the same hard fortunes or terrible fate, 
and had also counselled them to surrender as they 
did. 

Thus through the dreary wilderness, in mid win- 
ter, they marched. They reached the Indian village 
in due course of time, without any incident by the 
way worthy of particular mention. Once received 
into the savage settlement, they were objects of the 



A PBISONER. 159 

liveliest curiosity to all the children of the forest, 
and were continually surrounded by groups of 
women and children, anxiously studying their pecu- 
liarities of dress and character. 



160 



CHAPTEK IX. 

A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 



DESIROUS of acquainting their white allies, 
the British, with the results of their prow- 
ess, the Indians sent off Boone and ten 
chosen men of the captured party through the wil- 
derness, and across rivers and creeks, to the British 
fort at Detroit. General Hamilton was in command 
at that noted place, and it is charged that, in obedi- 
ence to the spirit of the alliance then existing 
between the British and Indians, he had offered 
large sums of money for all the scalps of the white 
men that the Indians might bring in. He has the 
credit, however, of humanely telling the savages that 
he preferred living prisoners to scalps, which was so 
much in his favor when sentiments so civilized were 
not in the fashion. 

They were about three weeks in making the jour- 
ney, which they did with some difficulty. Boone all 
the while pretended to be contented with his lot, 
and thus deceived his captors the more. Little is 
recorded of the journey itself; he is mute respecting 
it. Arrived at Detroit, he became at once the 




BOONE'S ESCAPE FROM CAPTIVITY. 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 161 

observed of all. Hamilton, the British commander, 
knew much about him, because he could not well 
help knowing in what esteem he had been held by 
Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia. The officers and soldiers 
showed him many personal attentions, which he 
greatly prized, and repeatedly placed their funds at 
his disposal. He was escorted around wherever he 
chose to go in the neighborhood, by his Indian 
guides, all the while professing himself satisfied 
with his new fortunes. Hamilton offered the Indi- 
ans as large a sum as one hundred pounds sterling, 
or five hundred dollars, for his ransom, but the 
Indians refused the offer unconditionally. They 
knew how valuable a prize they had in the person 
of the Pioneer of Kentucky. 

He stayed at Detroit for a month,^t no time 
betraying the least discontent or desire to escape. 
And when they saw this contentment, even after 
their prompt refusal to give him up into the hands 
of the commander of the fort, the savages were 
more than ever convinced that he was one of them- 
selves, and would ere long assimilate to their cus- 
toms and habits. He disguised his real feelings 
admirably — there is no denying it. Their respect 
for him had now increased many fold. Above all 
his other characteristics, they liked his steady calm- 
14- 



162 DANIEL BOONE. 

ness and persistent silence ; these were peculiarly 
traits of tlieir own. Then, too, he was as brave as 
the bravest of their own warriors. If they could but 
secure the alliance and friendship of such a man as 
that, they considered that wonderful results would 
have been accomplished. To this end, they were 
quite willing to leave all to time. 

After having made this public exhibition of their 
distinguished prisoner, the Indians set out on their 
return to Chillicothe. They left his comrades with the 
British — himself alone they would not let go, so great 
a prize was lie esteemed in their eyes. The return 
journey began on the 10th of April, and was contin- 
ued for a tedious length of time before they finally 
reached the old Indian village again. Boone's well- 
trained ey* — through which alone some men edu- 
cate themselves entirely — observed everything ; not 
a feature of the fine country through which he 
passed, escaped him. That same section at the 
present day produces immense wealth for the nation 
whose boast its possession is. 

Arrived at Chillicothe once more, he describes his 
way of life there, with the help of his biographer's 
pen, in the following way : — 

" At Chillicothe I spent my time as comfortably as I 
could expect ; was adopted, according to their custom. 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 163 

into a family, where I became a son, and had a great 
share in the affection of my new parents, brothers, sis- 
ters and friends. I was exceedingly familiar and 
friendly with them, always appearing as cheerful and 
satisfied as possible, and they put great confidence in 
me. I often went a hunting with them, and frequently 
gained their applause for my activity at our shooting 
matches. I was careful not to exceed many of them 
in shooting, for no people are more envious than they 
in this sport. I could observe in their countenances 
and gestures the greatest expressions of joy, when they 
exceeded me ; and, when the reverse happened, of 
envy. The Shawanese king took great notice of me, 
and treated me with profound respect and entire friend- 
ship, often entrusting me to hunt at my liberty. 1 
frequently returned with the spoils of the woods, and 
as often presented some of what I had taken to him, 
expressive of duty to my sovereign. My food and 
lodging were in common with them ; not so good, 
indeed, as I could desire, but necessity made everything 
acceptable." 

In order to become a member of the tribe, and 
particularly to be admittefl into the family of the 
chieftain, he was oblio'ed to 2:0 throuo-h certain cer- 
emonies that must have cost his feelings a larsre 
sacrifice ; but he considered the object to be gained 



1G4 DANIEL BOONE. 

more than anything else. They took him and 
plucked out, spear by spear, all the hair from his 
head, with the exception of a single lock on the top 
of the skull, called the tuft-lock, which was about 
three inches in diameter ; then they put him 
through the process of having the white blood 
washed out of him ; next he was carried to the Coun- 
cil House, where he listened to a set speech, setting 
forth the dignity of his new character, and the ser- 
vices expected of him as the son of a chief and the 
member of the tribe. Finally he submitted himself 
to be painted all about the face, in most fantastic 
devices, and then he sat down with the rest of them 
to a feast and to the pipe which is symbolic of 
peace and fraternity. Boone's best friend would not 
have been likely to recognize him, had he seen him 
thus metamorphosed. 

Every day he studied how he might make 
his preparations most skillfully for escape. The 
Indians kept a close watch on him, though he be- 
lieved they had confidence in his integrity. When 
they gave him bullets with which to go out on his 
hunting excursions, they were careful to count them, 
and observe on his return if he had secreted any for 
his own use in the future. But even here Boone 
was too shrewd for them ; for he would use but 



r 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 165 



slight charges of powder, and the bullets he would 
cut in two ! Besides sending him out to hunt and 
bring in wild game for them, the savages set him at 
work making salt ; this they knew he could do, for 
when he was surprised and captured by them, he 
was with a party that were engaged in this very 
occupation. There were salt springs on the Scioto 
Eiver, and thither he was forced to go and manufac- 
ture this indispensable commodity for his dusky cap- 
tors. The Indian was too proud to do menial 
work, and therefore left it for his squaws and his 
captives. Boone did not in any one point disappoint 
their expectations. He worked industriously and 
cheerfully ; he produced liberal supplies of the 
article they w^anted, and they bestowed on him their 
praise for his valuable services. 

All this time, they were without their old leader 
at the fort at Boonesborough. More than four 
months had elapsed already, and nothing had been 
heard of him. It was most natural to conclude 
that he was dead, or had gone away into a captivity 
from which there was no hope of return. If they 
had been able to hear nothing of him, neither had 
he of them. He had undoubtedly received reports 
from Detroit, through the Indian runners that came 
in, from time to time, from that far-ofiP locality, and 



166 DANIEL BOONE. 

those reports were anything but pleasant to his 
thoughts ; for they told him of dark hours for the 
resisting colonies, sad reverses to their fortunes, and 
cloudiness for their prospects. 

Presently, however, news arrived in a round- 
about way at Boonesborough that their leader had 
been carried oft' to Detroit. That was all they 
could learn of his fate. They supposed now that he 
was altogether in the hands of the British, and that 
the Indians would have no more to do with him. 
And not having heard further respecting his dis- 
posal, the general conclusion was that he had been 
carried still further away into the wilds of Canada. 
Little thought they that, at that very hour, he was 
so near them, the adopted son of a powerful Shaw- 
anese Chief, and secretly plotting how he could best 
get back to them again ! But, without Boone, they 
seemed to give up all ; he had so long been their 
guiding spirit, animating them to exertion, that 
when he was lost, all seemed to be lost with him. 
Hence they fell oft" in their watchfulness against the 
enemy, and even suffered the fort itself — the last 
hope and stay of their existence — to be neglected. 
The strength of the fortification may be best under- 
stood from the following brief description : — 

*' It was a perfect parallelogram, including from 



A WONDEKFUL ESCAPE. 167 

a half to a whole acre. A trench was then dug, 
four or five feet deep, and large and contiguous pick- 
ets planted in the trench, so as to form a compact 
wall from ten to twelve feet above the soil. The 
pickets were of hard and durable timber, about a 
foot in diameter. The soil about them was rammed 
hard. All the angles were small projecting squares 
of still stronger material, and planting, technically 
called Jlankers, with oblique port holes, so that the 
sentinel could rake the external front of the station, 
without being exposed to shot from without. Two 
immense folding gates were the means of com- 
munication from without." 

Satisfied in her own mind that she should not hear 
from her husband again, the wife of Daniel Boone 
started oflP with her little family — excepting one 
daughter — for the home of her parents in North 
Carolina. She made the journey on horseback, 
carrying her few effects along with her the best way 
she could. It was a sorrowful journey indeed for 
her. Since coming out into the western country, 
she had sacrificed her eldest boy and lost her hus- 
band. Were there anything now left to stay for, 
she would willingly have remained on the frontier ; 
but she despaired of ever seeing her husband again, 
and the condition of the settlers at Boonesborough 



168 DANIEL BOONE. 

was fast becoming so precarious that she could not 
but see the folly of staying only to throw her life 
away. Safely, though slowly, that brave woman, 
with her little brood about her, found her way back 
through the frowning wilderness, hundreds of miles, 
to Carolina. Few of her sex could be found wil- 
ling to undertake such a journey even in these 
times ; what is to be thought of the courage of her 
who freely set out on it, in times of peril like that, 
when the forest was alive with dangers from sav- 
age and beast, and not even a regular trail was to 
be followed from one point to another? Surely, 
that she was entirely worthy of her noble husband. 
She arrived home in safety, as every reader is glad 
to know. 

To return to Boone himself. When he had 
finished making salt and gone back to the Indian 
settlement at Chillicothe, he was not a little sur- 
prised to find that his captors had been making 
preparations, in his absence, to proceed in full force 
against the fort at Boonesborough. There were 
four hundred and fifty of their bravest warriors, all 
ready to set out on the expedition. This fact 
caused him to hasten his plans. He began to 
hurry now, where he had acted leisurely before. 
But it would not answer for him to betray the least 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 169 

anxiety, or even suspicion ; therefore he pretended 
not to notice that anything appeared different to 
him from what was usual. 

In this way he could overhear the whole of their 
talk, and get at the meaning of their plans. They 
had no idea, either, that he had so good a know- 
ledge of their language ; but Daniel Boone was a 
man who put everything that came in his way to 
good use, at one time or aiiother. He heard them 
talk of the weakness of the fort at that particular 
time ; of the carelessness with wdiich it was garri- 
soned ; of the neglect into which it had fallen ; and 
of their expectations to surprise and capture it 
beyond the possibility of a doubt. No one can 
imagine with what pangs his heart was visited, for 
he believed that at the fort were still his wife and 
children ; still he was forced to appear perfectly 
calm, or all would be lost. It was a trial such as 
very few men could go through. Nay, more and 
harder than this ; he had even to flatter and cajole 
the rascals whenever they did something which they 
deemed worthy of praise. Even upon the prepa- 
rations that were making all around him for this 
very enterprise, he was forced to look with compla- 
cency and apparent satisfaction. 

He knew he must escape, and that speedily. Yet 
15 



170 DANIEL BOONE. 

with the utmost caution. A single hasty movement, 
a single false step, however slight, would betray aj^. 
The 16th of June came. Up to that very day, the 
Indians had felt no suspicion of his intention. On 
that morning he was going out again, with their 
consent, to engage in hunting. He rose early, took 
his gun, secreted a small piece of venison to allay 
hunger, and started off. His heart swelled, 
courageous as it always was, to think of the great 
risk he was running. They would easily overtake 
him, if they should suspect for what he had gone 
forth ; and once overtaken, his doom was sealed. 
They would never have permitted him to live to 
deceive them again. He was intensely excited, and 
yet he kept cool. To get a fair start was his great 
object. He knew quite as much of the wilderness as 
they, and would not be afraid to trust his own skill 
in woodcraft against theirs. He was in the prime 
of life, too, fresh and active ; and he felt no fear, 
great as were the odds against him, unless it should 
come from some unforseen mischances. 

For four days and nights he kept travelling, 
always in the direction of the fort, and, in the course 
of that time, he said that he ate but a single meal ! 
The distance to Boonesborough was one hundred and 
sixty miles. This was at the rate of about forty 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 171 

miles a day. The single meal eaten by him on the 
road consisted of a wild turkey that he shot himself, 
after he had got safely across the Ohio River. 
When once he had passed this dividing line, he 
began to feel more at his ease, though still anxious, 
and all the time steadily pushing forward for the 
fort. It was his great care, too, to mislead his 
pursuers, or throw them off the trail ; this cost him 
much trouble. He swam rivers, forded creeks, 
waded through swamps and marshes, and found his 
way through forests and almost impenetrable cane- 
brakes. He listened to every sound, lest it might 
be a dusky pursuer. He was no swimmer, or at 
least a very indifferent one, and he doubted if he 
should be able to cross the Ohio safely, especially as . 
its current was much swollen at that season of the 
year. But when he came to that great stream, 
flowing on so majestically, he had the luck to find 
a canoe that had drifted into the bushes on the bank 
near by, into Avhich he jumped with no sort of cere- 
mony ; and he paddled himself to the opposite shore 
as fast as ever boat was propelled by oars before. 
It is said there was a hole in one end of the canoe, 
but that he managed to stop effectually, and in a 
very reasonable time. It was certainly providential 
that it happened to be hidden there in the bushes, 



172 DANIEL BOONE. 

and so he recognized the incident. When he reached 
the fort at last, and duly made himself known to his 
former comrades, they looked upon him as upon one 
risen from the dead. He was some time engaged in 
satisfying them of his identity, and afterwards in 
narrating his story from heginning to end. 

It grieved him to learn that his wife and chil- 
dren had gone, but it was too late to help that. He 
set about directing the needed repairs for the fort, 
knowing far better than the garrison what were the 
preparations making, and what now were the many 
times heightened motives for investing and destroy- 
ing it. All his energy was brought to bear upon 
this sin2:le thino;. Where it was weak — at the 
gates, the flankers, the posterns, or the bastions — 
he made it strono: ao:ain. He infused into them an 
activity and enthusiasm they had not displayed since 
the days when he used to arouse them to exertion 
before. 

In the short space of ten days they were all right 
again, ready to receive any sort of a visit — outside, 
of course — which their old enemies might think 
best to make. This time he felt sure that the fort 
would be compelled to stand a siege it had never 
passed through before. He had seen with his own 
eyes the large preparations made by the Indians to 



A WONDERFUL ESCAPE. 173 

invest and capture it. He had hoard their talk 
about the matter with his own ears, and could not 
be deceived. Hence he well knew that when the 
next wave rolled in upon them, it would bo the most 
terrible of any that had hitherto given them a shock. 
Against this he was bound to make all possible pre- 
paration. Besides suspecting what he did, he had, 
it seems, heard directly from the Indians at Chilli- 
cothe. One of his comrades had made his escape 
also, and came in with fresh reports of what the 
Indians were doing. They were all up in arms 
about his having left them in the style in which he 
did, and vowed vengeance on his devoted head for 
having so thoroughly deceived them. They held a 
great council forthwith. The matter was fully de- 
bated. It would not do to let a prisoner like that 
escape. They would teach him that the pride of the 
red man could not thus be offended with impunity. 
They, in their turn, too, were informed how the im- 
provements in the fort went on. It was evident to 
them that the old hand of the master was there 
again. The intelligence of the strengthening of the 
white man's fortress excited them inexpressibly. 
They were impatient to be off, and make the assault 
they were resolved upon. They knew that every 
day's delay now only added to the white man's 
15- 



174 DANIEL BOONE. 

strength. The talk was long and earnest. It was 
obvious to them that they had no common enemy to 
deal with now, and they remembered that he was 
familiar with all their habits, their customs, and 
their weaknesses. He had shown the Indian, if no 
other white man had done it before him, that he was 
more than a match for him on his owni ground, that 
he was acquainted with his tricks and traps, and 
knew how to keep himself out of them ; and that the 
Indian, with all his boasted cunning, must needs be 
on the alert, or he would suddenly find himself out- 
witted by tlie very enemy he pretended to hold in 
such contempt and disdain. 



175 

CHAPTEE X. 

SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. 

THE Indians formed the grand plan of exter- 
minating the whites altogether. They had 
witnessed their numerical growth since the 
day when Boone himself, the first settler, looked upon 
the unexploixid solitudes. They rememhered from 
how small a beginning this now formidable power 
had grown. If it was left to make its way unob- 
structed, there was no telling how soon it would be 
able to overwhelm them all. It was but natural that 
the red man should regard the enterprise of the 
white man with feelings of jealousy. There was a 
world of power wrapped up in the movements of the 
latter, whose sudden development might drive the 
former out of his native wilds altogether. Some- 
thing mysterious was seci'eted in the very mode of 
his movements. This fort itself was a vast wonder. 
The courage of the white man was something 
unlooked for. But, above all, the savage could not 
measure the character, or fathom the motives, or 
comprehend the power of the acknowledged leader 



176 DANIEL BOONE. 

of the whites — Daniel Boone ; he was the pro- 
foundest mystery of all. 

Hence, with such impressions strongly working 
on their untutored minds, they almost instinctively 
came to the conclusion that, in order to conquer the 
whites, they must destroy them ; if they would be 
rid of them, it must be, not by expelling them from 
the country, but by exterminating them ; not so 
much as a relic of their former existence in the wil- 
derness was to be left, to testify that they had lived 
or died there. 

To accomplish a purpose so fell as this, required 
the active strength of the entire nation. They ral- 
lied far and near. All their braves, young and old, 
assembled in force, prepared to carry out the plan 
proposed. From this Indian village and that they 
came in, duly equipped for the bloody enterprise. 
The old Shawanese sachem — he who had adopted 
Boone as his own son — was at the head. His heart 
could never consent to forgive the deceit that had 
been practised upon it by his pale-faced son. If he 
could taste the sweetness of revenge now, he would 
feel in a degree compensated for what his pride had 
suffered. It did not take a long time, therefore, for 
the village at Chillicothe to fill up with recruits. 

Boone was on the aleri. He knew the character 



SIEGE OJ? BOOJSESBOROUQH. 177 

of the foe, and the necessity of timely preparation 
against their approach. He had made the fort 
strong and whole again, and felt assured that it was 
capable of offering an irresistible defence against 
them. And thus prepared, he sallied out with a 
party of nineteen men, determined to oppose them 
even before they reached Boonesborough. He would 
fain surprise their scouting parties, and perhaps cut 
them off ! It was a plan entirely characteristic of 
Boone, and worthy of his tried courage and boldness. 
Instead of waiting for them to come to him, he would 
go out to them. In this sally from tlie fort, he and 
his party traversed a distance of one hundred and 
sixty miles. They struck off for the Scioto River, 
near which they suddenly fell in with a party of 
thirty Indians, who were on their way down to join 
the main body of the enemy at Chillicothe. The 
place where they met was at an Indian village on 
a creek known as Paint Creek. A battle was at 
once fought between the two parties. Boone proved 
more than a match for the red-skins, whom he com- 
pelled to flee with the loss of one of their number 
killed, and two wounded. The fellows made rapid 
tracks for their friends at Chillicothe, bearing along 
with them the unwelcome tidings of the affray. Of 
course the Indian leaders there were astonished 



178 DANIEL BOONE. 

beyond measure to learn that their old enemy had 
shown boldness enough to come out from the fort and 
offer them battle. Nothing now was thought of but 
to go forth, and overtake and destroy him, and all 
his men. 

But Boone was prepared for a movement like this. 
He had no idea of being caught away from home by 
the main body of the Indian forces. Having once 
tested the quality of his men in an open fight in the 
forest, he was quite satisfied to retire with them to 
the advantages of shelter again. They had tasted 
danger outside, and the Indians, too, had been taught 
a wholesome lesson ; and that was all Boone wanted. 
It was something, at least, to show the savages that 
they need not consider themselves safe from assault 
in any place, or at any time. Having compelled 
them to abandon their little settlement at Paint 
Creek, and leave their baggage, together with several 
horses, behind them, he was for the time satisfied. 
He was absent but a single week on this warlike 
excursion, in which time he had struck terror into 
the very heart of the enemy. 

As soon as he reached the entrenchments of the 
fort again, Boone put the entire garrison on the look- 
out for the foe ; it was certain now that they would 
soon be there. He had gone out to challenge them, 



SIEGE OF BOONESBORCUGH. 179 

and it was estimating their courage and character 
wrongly to suppose that they would pass such a chal- 
lenge by. Nor did he expect this to be any common 
assault, such as he was already familiar with ; all 
their old tricks and surprises, their deceits and impo- 
sitions, could not be expected to produce any present 
effect ; hence he argued rightly when he concluded 
that the attack to come next would be entirely new 
in its mode and results. He was aware of the fact, 
too — and it was one not to be put out of sight in 
the calculation — that the Indians would not fioht 
this time alone, but under white leaders, men skilled 
in a warfare of which the savages knew little or 
nothing. There were the British to aid and officer 
them ; and there were certain of the French in Can- 
ada, too, whose inclinations were not at all towards 
the cause of the white settler on the frontier, espec- 
ially as it tended to the spread of colonial power 
from the seaboard over the western wilderness. 

The men at the fort waited and watched patiently. 
They were soon repaid, too, for their trouble, before 
long, the wilderness was alive with Indians, all 
armed for the final struggle. They came prepared 
to blot the settlement at BoonesbOrough out of 
existence. Their faces Avere painted after the most 
hideous fashion, and their bodies were clad with the 



180 DANIEL BOONE. 

most unique and oddly-assorted apparel. They came 
and sat down before the fort in full streno-th. The 
forest resounded with their hideous yells and war- 
whoops. Stalwart forms appeared from the distant 
shadows, every one the impersonation of hatred and 
revenge. They scowled the defiance they might in 
vain have tried to speak. On the right hand and 
the left, and far away in the front, these native war- 
riors threw out their terrible threats. Boone felt 
that hope had gone — except it came through exer- 
tion. It was idle to expect quarter from an enemy 
that had been so many times baffled. If they once 
effected an entrance within their fortified enclosure, 
there was end of all things earthly for them. It was 
truly a dismal contingency to contemplate, but it 
doubtless lent fresh courage to the settlers, for it was 
the terrible courage that is born of despair, that 
dies, but never surrenders. 

The commander of this body of Indians was none 
other than Du Quesne himself, who gave a name 
to a fort which will ever go with our history, and 
with which that of Washington himself is associated. 
Blackfish, the Shawanese sachem, held command 
with, not under him. There were about four hun- 
dred and fifty Indians in the besieging force, and a 
dozen Canadians. It may appear strange that the 



SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. ISl 

Frencli colors were thus displayed in this memorable 
fight, hut the British conquest of Canada was not 
yet practically felt among the Indians of the far 
West, and this expedition, moreover, was of a parti- 
zan, rather than a national, character. Canada was 
still, in fact, French, though ruled over by Great 
Britain ; and hence, though we were at the time at 
war with England and at peace with France, the 
spectacle was exhibited on this occasion of a French- 
man leading on a party of Canadians and Indians 
to assail an American garrison. The lines, however, 
were more carefully drawn, not a long time after- 
wards. The French government never desired that 
the United States should undertake an invasion of 
Canada, preferring — so say the documents that 
relate to that period — that Canada and the provinces 
should remain for the present under the military 
dominion of England. It is argued, an behalf of so 
strange a position by France, that she wished first to 
aid in securing a separation of the colonies from the 
mother country, after which Canada and the provinces 
would of their own free will return to their loyalty 
to France again. No other explanation of so strange 
a circumstance seems possible ; and even with that, 
all men are not at this day satisfied. 

The little fort that was the object of all this 
16 



182 DANIEL BOONE. 

preparation, garrisoned but sixty-five men. So few 
against so many ; seven outside, against one inside ! 
What a forlorn hope indeed did they entertain ! 
There were helpless women and children within the 
Avails to protect, too. They all waited for the first 
movement to be made. 

It was made ; but very difierently from the stereo- 
typed Indian method. Instead of rushing at the 
gates with their hideous whoops and yells, a dif- 
ferent course was pursued. The savages adopted 
the method of the white armies in cases of siege, 
and sat down and asked the garrison to surrender, 
sending a messenger to the fort with that modest 
request. Boone answered that he wanted two days 
in which to consider. It appears that, as soon as he 
knew of the straits to which he was likely to be re- 
duced, he despatched a messenger to the East, 
describing his condition, and soliciting immediate 
aid. It was to Col. Arthur Campbell that he sent 
the request, and within the two days specified he 
would be likely to hear from him. It was simply 
to gain time therefore, that he put off an answer to 
the summons. If Campbell should happen to come 
forth from the forest unexpectedly to the Indians, 
then he could himself sally out and attack them 
from the front, while the force of Campbell would 



SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. 183 

fall Upon them from the rear ; and between tlie two 
fires, their strength must melt away. Military men 
wonder at the motive that could have induced Du 
Quesne to consent to the terms tendered by the gar- 
rison ; yet it is possible that he thought he might 
obtain by diplomacy what he was not so certain to 
secure by assault, and the glory would be greater. 
At any rate, he influenced Blackfish and his party to 
w^ait for the two days asked for by Boone, which was 
all that was wanted. Meantime, too, the garrison 
could complete the arrangements necessary for sus- 
taining still more successfully the threatened si.ege. 
Du Quesne certainly showed a humane spirit. 
He allowed the women and children, in the interval, 
to go out and get water from the spring, with which 
to help along existence during the trial that was 
before them. The cattle, too, were all got in 
through the posterns, — a very necessary assistance 
in carrying the garrison through the siege. But 
Boone himself was very careful to give the enemy 
no advantage ; especially was he solicitous that they 
should not capture his own person, for then the 
whole object of the expedition would be over. 
Hence, while he freely exposed himself to their 
sight, he was careful to remain under protection of 
the fort. In his going out and coming in, he 



184 DANIEL BOONE. 

"became quite familiar with the enemy, many of 
whom knew him well at the Chillicothe village and 
would have been glad enough to lay their hands 
on him now. 

But the time grew short. The two days were 
nearly spent. No Col. Campbell yet, emerging 
with succor from the shadows of the forest. The 
answer was to be finally given. All the good that 
could be gained by the delay, had already been 
gained; the garrison had been supplied with beef 
and water to stand the test and trial of a lono^ sie^e. 
He saw now that he must act ; words were idle. 
So he collected his little handful of men around 
him, and asked them which they preferred — resist- 
ance or surrender. He knew for himself that sur- 
render was certain death, and resistance, at the 
worst, could be no more ; yet he deferred to the 
opinions of the others. They were all ready with 
their answer ; they would resist till the last hour of 
their lives — they would never capitulate. Death 
itself was preferable to disgrace of that character. 

Therefore they made ready to fight. They under- 
stood how much more numerous the enemy were 
than themselves, but they would fight, nevertheless. 
The commander of the besieging force demanded 
his answer. Boone stood boldly on the ramparts 



eiiiafi 01' BOONESBOROUGH. 185 

and gave it — " We will fight so long as a man 
lives to fight," said he. It was enough. The die 
was cast. From that moment their lives depended 
on a successful resistance. It was said that the 
bold and brave manner of Boone struck dismay into 
their hearts. At any rate, their leaders must have 
seen how foolish they were in permitting the gar- 
rison to provision themselves as thoroughly as they 
did. But the siege did not begin even then. Ihi 
Quesne was not willing to give up his arts of diplo- 
macy, thinking he might yet win by mere words. 
So he returned a reply to Boone^s answer, telling 
him that Gov. Hamilton, at Detroit, wished to 
make prisoners of the garrison, but not to destroy 
them, and he requested him to send out nine men 
from the fort to make a treaty, in which case the 
forces outside would be withdrawn, and all would go 
back home without any trouble. In his account of 
the afiair, Boone says, " This sounded grateful to 
our ears, and we agreed to the propoeal." He 
agreed to it because he knew that Hamilton felt 
friendly towards him, and he further knew that if 
they fell into the hands of the besiegers as regular 
prisoners, there was no hope for their lives. 

On consultation, it was resolved to select the nine 
men desired and send them out. Boone, of course, 
16* 



186 DANIEL BOONE. 

was at their head. His brother was likewise of the 
party. The very best men of the garrison, in faxit 
were the ones selected. Yet they determined not to 
go beyond the protection of the fort itself. The dis- 
tance they ventured was one hundred and twenty feet 
from the walls. The accurate shooters of the gar- 
rison, with sure rifles at their shoulders, held their 
muzzles in such a position as to protect them. The 
leading men of the opposite party came up on the 
same ground. It was plain, however, that they took 
precaution to protect themselves as much as the 
others. There they met, professedly with only 
peaceful intentions, but in reality dreading each the 
power and threats of the other. 

The Canadian captain proposed the terms. In 
order to test the sincerity of the besiegers, and 
for nothing more, Boone and his party consented 
to sign them outright, even though the conditions 
were such as they well knew they could not agree 
to. Boone employed the occasion as a mere ruse, in 
order to find out their real meaning and intention. 
The treaty, therefore, was signed. Blackfish, 
the old Shawanese chief, then rose and commenced 
a speech. The Indians came forward at the same 
moment. He said it was customary, on the conclu- 
sion of a treaty of peace, for the parties to the treaty 



SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. 187 

to come ana shake hands with one another. Boone 
and his other eight men were alive to suspicion, but 
still they consented to go through with the cere- 
mony. The moment hands were joined, a signal 
was given by Blackfish, by previous concert, and 
three Indians sprang forward to each white man, to 
make a captive. But, fortunately, the whites 
were fully prepared for them They broke 
away from the grasp of professed friendship, 
and ran for the fort. A general firing began. 
The party stationed at the fort let off their guns to 
protect their fleeing comrades, and the Indians com- 
menced firing in return. Boone had thus unmasked 
their whole scheme, and had literally drawn their 
fire. Their entire plan was now exposed. The 
brother of Boone, Squire Boone, was w^ounded, 
but all the rest escaped as by a miracle. Nine men 
out of the jaws of four hundred and sixty ! It was 
indeed a miracle. 

Having secured their retreat within the fort, and 
closely shut and fastened the gates, they made 
instant readiness to sustain the worst that might 
come. And immediately, too, the siege began in 
good earnest. The Canadian and the Indian united 
their skill and perseverance. For nine days and 
nights this trial proceeded. It is impossible to con- 



188 DANIEL BOONE. 

vey to the reader any proper idea of what the garri- 
son in that time went through. They were few in 
numbers, and their hopes were feeble. They were 
far from their friends, far from all succor and sym- 
pathy. The enemy could keep constant watch, and 
not suffer ; but if the garrison watched, as they 
must, they were so few that all would be likely in 
the end to be exhausted. Every man, during that 
memorable siege of nine days, proved himself a 
hero. The great "West knows not how much it 
owes to the exertions of these same brave pioneers, 
who were willing and ready to endure so much. 
The firing of bullets from die outside was incessant ; 
it literally rained bullets, by the hour at a time, 
But the men in the fort were prudent, and used their 
ammunition only to the best advantage. They 
fired only when they were pretty sure to hit. The 
savages sheltered themselves as well as they could 
in the belt of the forest hard by, but even then the 
marksmen within the fort were much too sure for 
them. To show the amount of ammunition used by 
the foe, it is only necessary to note what Boone him- 
self said about it, that " after they were gone, we 
picked up one hundred and twenty-five pounds of 
bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, 
which certainly is a great proof of their industry." 



SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. 189 

It is related, among the incidents of the siege, 
that a negro had deserted from the fort, who was 
known to bo skilled in the use of the rifle. Anxious 
to commend himself to his newly-found friends, lie 
climbed into a tree, and began to do serious execu- 
tion. Boone heard what was going on, and looked 
out for the fellow. As soon as he saw his head, he 
fired a bullet into it, and the negro fell dead 
to the ground. Boone's daughter also was wounded 
— the only one who had remained behind when her 
mother set out on her return to Carolina. At 
length, exasperated to find that they could gain 
no advantage thus, the savages resolved to try 
another plan. They set fire to the fort ! The 
flames were soon spreading ! Whatever was done, 
must be done instantly. A young man was bold and 
brave enough to risk his life in the attempt to quench 
the flames. He succeeded in his effort. The fort 
was saved. Seeing this, the Indians thought they 
might as well give it all up. They took counsel 
among themselves forthwith, and resolved to with- 
draw' without delay. There was no use in keeping 
up the attempt to subdue an enemy whom the Great 
Spirit had willed should not be subdued. But before 
they withdrew, they resorted to one expedient more. 
They attempted to undermine the fort. Boone, 



190 DANIEL BOONE. 

however, was on the alert, and foiled them with a 
counter-mine. They felt that they were vanquished, 
and gave it up. 

The siege had lasted in all, from the 8th to the 
20th day of August. It was a memorable affair in 
the history of the West, and cannot be dwelt on too 
long or too often by those who, in this day, enjoy 
the beneiits that were secured to them b}^ these 
bravest of all pioneers. Nothing more desperate in 
all history is recorded, when w^e take into account 
the circumstances of the time, and the several inci- 
dents of the occasion. To the last day of their lives, 
the men who participated in these stirring scenes 
were w^ont to recall them with expressions of the 
deepest emotion. They could never forget the fear- 
ful trials to which, in that brief time, they were 
subjected. 

The savages went their own way. They nated to 
give over their darling design to make a captive of 
the man who was the acknowledged life and soul of 
the settlement, knowing very w^ell the sort of man 
they had once had in their hands. But it seemed 
they were not fated to have him in their power very 
soon again. All their plans had certainly failed to 
retake him. They vanished as they had come, and 
the dusky retreats of the great forest received them. 



SIEGE OF BOONESBOROUGH. 191 

Of killed, tliey lost thirty-seven, while the exact 
number of the wounded is not known. It is unde- 
niable that upon the successful resistance of this lit- 
tle garrison, as upon a pivot, turned the entire for- 
tunes of the British power at the West. Had they 
succeeded in overwhelming Boone and his garrison, 
there is no disputing that the colonies must have 
been pressed by the enemy, both in front and rear. 
But Providence ordered and arranged otherwise. 
" Man proposes, but God disposes ; " — it was strik- 
ingly illustrated in the fortunes of the frontier set- 
tlers of the trying times of the Kevolution. 



192 
CHAPTEK XI. 

MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 

THE brief and modest statement of the Pioneer, 
after the siege of Booneshorough was raised, 
is as folllows : " Soon after this, I went into 
the settlement, and nothing worthy of place in this 
account passed in my affairs for some time." His 
successful holding out at the fort, however, was an 
act memorable enough of itself to answer for his 
lifetime ; for, had this little frontier fortress gone, 
with the clouds of misfortune that were gathering 
over the American cause in the Atlantic States, 
there is no telling if it would have been possible to 
recover from the blow at all. More depended on 
this very defense of Booneshorough than the careless 
reader of our history is aware o£ 

He says of himself again : " Shortly after the 
troubles at Booneshorough, I went to my family, and 
lived peaceably there. The history of my going 
home (to North Carolina) and returning with my 
family, forms a series of difficulties, an account 
of which would swell a volume, and, being foreign 
to my purpose, I omit them." 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 193 

Emigration westward soon began to set in. 
People, on seeing Boone safely returned home, had 
confidence to believe that the position of the settlers 
in Kentucky could be held against any odds. The 
trial to which they had been subjected already, went 
to prove that they could easily sustain even 
more. 

The next year was 1770. The dark days of the 
Bevolution had been thoroughly tried. There were 
a great many in Virginia and Carolina at that 
time, who wanted very much to exchange poor 
farms for rich ones, such as were described to them 
as abounding in Kentucky; and hence emigration 
commenced with a good deal of spirit and energy. 
Seeing the course matters were taking, the govern- 
ment of Virginia resolved to act for her own advan- 
tage without delay. A land office was forthwith 
opened. A regular board of adjudicators were 
selected from the most respectable citizens, who were 
to form a court, and go about from one place to 
another, where the land that was to be entered lay, 
and~give and confirm titles. The names of the first 
Virginia Commissioners were, Edmund Lyne, Wil- 
liam Fleming, Stephen Twigg, and James Barbour. 
They opened their office on the 13th of October, 
1779, and Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Ken- 
17 



194 DANIEL BOONE. 

tucky after she "became a State and was admitted 
into the Union, made the first entry of land therein, 
he having raised a croj) of corn in the country in the 
year 1776. 

The rage for the possession of land hecame almost 
furious. Speculators came forward, and vied with 
the hardy pioneer for the dominion that was to make 
them wealthy and powerful. The law read, " That 
any person might acquire title to so much waste and 
unappropriated land as he or she might desire to 
purchase, on paying the consideration of forty pounds 
for every hundred acres, and so in proportion.^' The 
Treasurer received the money, gave a receipt, and 
that receipt, on presentation to the auditor, entitled 
the holder to a certificate that he was possessed of so 
much land as was therein specified. Tliere was much 
confusion and collision between those who held under 
the old Transylvania Company of Col. Henderson, 
and the present authorities of Virginia, and years 
passed away before the several points of law in dis- 
pute were finally settled. 

Boone, like all the rest, was very anxious to secure 
for himself an ample estate in the country whose fer- 
tility he had first discovered. So he packed up his 
traps, and, taking counsel of his considerate wife, 
laid out what money he could collect together in 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 195 

land-warrants, and started for Richmond to prove 
and certify them in the proper court. The whole 
amount of money thus invested by him was twenty 
thousand dollars. This comprised nearly his all. 
On the way from Kentucky to Richmond he was 
cruelly robbed of the whole of them, and left almost 
destitute. Others in Kentucky had entrusted to his 
care their claims also, and these had gone with his 
own. 

This was bad enough for any man. To add the 
last sting to his misfortunes, he was blamed by those 
whose property he had thus lost, and even charged 
by them, in some cases openly, with having kept 
their money for his own uses ! There was a loss 
both of property and character. But these losses of 
the others he lived to return again. He was not the 
man to let such imputations against him sleep, with- 
out proving them false and impossible. Yet, so far 
as the Old Hunter Avas concerned, it was just as well 
as if he had not lost his own warrants ; for had he 
located them, he would have been dispossessed after- 
wards by the technical constructions of the odious 
law itself, and he had better be robbed outright and 
all at once. 

Now he saw, more than ever, the need there was 
of making exertions. He had a large family around 



196 DANIEL BOONE. 

him, and lie was a poor man. He was in the prime 
of life, being only forty-five years old, and ready to 
do his part anywhere. Without delay he started 
straight for Boonesborough. His brave wife resolved 
to be his companion on the road. Readers in these 
days cannot appreciate the rare courage that was 
shown in this determination of the wife of the 
Pioneer. They cannot understand the nature either 
of the trials or the perils through which she was com- 
pelled to pass. 

According to our hero's own account, he " settled 
his family in Boonesborough once more." Once 
within the walls of the fort, where he had been the 
author of such brave and noble deeds, the old memo- 
ries revived within his manly breast. It is not to 
be questioned that all there felt the strength of a 
new courage when he came among them. Nor 
was he very much too early for the supply of the 
want that was to be made known. Gen. Clarke, of 
whom we have spoken before, had won some most 
brilliant victories over the combined forces of the 
British and Indians, taking prisoner even Governor 
Hamilton himself, who had command at Detroit when 
Boone was there a prisoner. In return for all these 
reverses, a large organization was set on foot for the 
reduction of Boonesborough, and the expectation was 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 197 

that it would be captured without much trouble. 
The whole united force of the expedition numbered 
about six hundred persons. Thej carried with them 
two pieces of cannon, and there was where they 
failed. The reader does not know the difficulty of 
taking cannon over smooth roads even ; and when 
they have to be dragged through the woods by main 
force, as must have been the case in that expedition, 
it will be more readily understood Avhy the whole 
plan was finally abandoned. It was fortunate indeed 
for the settlement that the enemy came to the deter- 
mination, as they did, to give over their design. 

About this time, too, Virginia recognized Boones- 
borough as a town, with all the dignity and rights 
of a township ; and Daniel Boone was named as one 
of the trustees in the act of incorporation. It was 
publicly directed that every man who would erect a 
dwelling-house sixteen feet square, with a brick, dirt, 
or stone chimney, should receive a very liberal grant 
of land within the limits of the township. 

Gov. Morehead, of Kentucky, in a public discourse 
on" the history of this famous town, remarks : — 
*' Time has passed roughly over the consecrated spot 
of the first settlement of Kentucky. The ' lots and 
streets ' of Booonesborough have ceased to be known 
by their original lines and landmarks. The work 
17- 



198 DANIEL BOONE. 

of the pioneers lias perished. Scarce a vestige 
remains of their rudely built cabins and their feeble 
palisades. The elm under whose shade they worship- 
ped, and legislated, and took counsel of each other for 
safety and defence, no longer survives to spread its 
ample canopy over our heads. But the soil on 
which they stood is under our feet. The spring at 
which they slaked their burning thirst, at every 
pause in the conflict with the remorseless foe, is at 
our side. The river from whose cliffs the Indian 
levelled his rifle at the invaders of his hunting 
ground, still rolls its arrowy current at our backs. 
These are the memorials that cannot fail.'' 

Boone had not been long at Boonesborough, 
before he projected an expedition to the Blue Licks, 
a place with which he was perfectly familiar. His 
brother Squire accompanied him. This was in 
October, 1780. It was the 7th day of the month 
when they set forth. Whether his object was to 
procure salt, or for some ather purpose, does not 
appear ; it may have been only from his love of 
adventure. They reached their destination without 
any trouble, accomplished the business on which 
they came, and set out on their return. As they 
started, a party of Indians who were secreted in the 
bushes, fired on them, and Squire Boone fell to the 



JB 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 190 

ground, mortally wounded. Daniel was obliged to 
flee, in order to save his own life. The savages 
scalped their dying victim, and put chase after the 
brother. But few Indians were a match for the 
great Pioneer in running, or in fighting. They fol- 
lowed him closely for a distance of three miles, and 
then gave him over. He was too shrewd and fleet 
of foot for them. It is related that a dog who had 
joined them in the pursuit, kept on after they fell 
back, and that Boone turned suddenly and shot the 
dog, and then pushed on again. He found his way 
back, sad and alone, to the settlement. Thus had 
Daniel Boone sacrificed both son and brother in his 
hard experiences on the frontier ; a costly sacrifice 
indeed for the sake of those who were to come after 
him. 

The following winter was one of the most severe 
ever known in the history of this country. Old men 
rehearsed the sufferings it entailed, when they forgot 
to talk even of the trials of the American army itself. 
Boone says of it, in his written account : "The sever- 
ity of the winter caused great difficulties in Kentucky. 
The enemy had destroyed most of the corn, the 
summer before. This necessary article was scarce 
and dear, and the inhabitants lived chiefly on the 
flesh of buffalo. The circumstances of many were 



200 DANIEL BOONE. 

very lamentable ; however, being a bardy race of 
people, and accustomed to difficulties and necessities, 
tbey were wonderfully supported through all their 
sufferings." 

The American soldiers endured untold sufferings 
during that never-to-be-forgotten winter. All trials 
then seemed to come together. It was a sad winter 
indeed for Daniel Boone, for the blow struck at his 
heart by the violent death of his joungest and best 
beloved brother was one from which he could not all 
at once recover. Perhaps, at this particular period, 
cold and gloomy as it was, he suffered more than at 
any other time of his varied life. 

The Land Commissioners having finished theii' 
business in Kentucky, a very large emigration set in, 
in the spring of the year, so that when the hard win- 
ter came on the sufferings were multiplied. It is 
said that the snow on the ground did not thaw, from 
the middle of November to the middle of February ; 
and that fact supplies the staple of the entire story. 
Cattle perished all around the settlements. Wild 
beasts died without number, unable to resist the 
influences of the cold. Bears and buffalo, deer and 
wolves, and wild turkeys, were found everywhere, 
having yielded to the freezing cold. The old set- 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 201 

tiers never forgot the "biting and "bitter experiences 
of that season. 

The number of settlers continued to increase in 
tlie following year. Boone stayed in Boonesborough 
still. In his narrative he says that an old Indian 
took him by the hand, one day, and said : "Brother, 
we have given you a fine land, but I believe you will 
have some trouble in settling it." He adds, very 
pathetically, — " My footsteps have often been 
marked with blood." 

That year passed without the occurrence of any 
events worth rehearsing. The land about the 
locality was coming to be taken up rapidly, and 
settlements abounded on every hand. But early in 
the following year (1782), the Indians became more 
bold and reckless. They made an attack on a 
settlement not very far from Boonesborough, and 
carried off a prisoner. A Capt. Ashton went out, 
with a small party, in pursuit of them. He and 
eleven of his party were slain, leaving but thirteen 
men of the little company he commanded. The 
alliance betw^een the British and Indians, likewise, 
made itself apparent now in new acts of cruelty, for 
w^hich no wTiter, calling himself civilized, would 
think he could find a poor show of apology in these 
times of ours. A tory renegade named Girty, made 



202 DANIEL BOONE. 

himself notorious in these bloody forays upon the 
whites, and his memory is kept in perpetual hatred 
and scorn throughout the West. A Col. McKee 
also performed his part in the same abhorrent ser- 
vice. Men like these inflamed the passions of igno- 
rant savages, and coldly looked on to see the deadly 
work they had themselves projected. 

There were constant alarms around the settle- 
ments, all through these days. The savages grew 
bolder, approached nearer, and left darker tracks 
behind them. They thieved and destroyed wherever 
they went. Party after party of whites went out 
against them, and almost always came back with- 
out some of their valuable men. 

Finally, there was a grand concert on the part of 
several Indian tribes — the Shawanese, Cherokees, 
Wyandots, Tawas, and Delawares — to make another 
general and overwhelming assault on the settle- 
ments. Old Blackfish was not with them, for he 
had already been slain. The Shawanese dwelt on 
the Great and Little Miami, in five Indian villages ; 
the Cherokees on the Tennessee ; the Wyandots on 
the Sandusky ; the Tawas, eighteen miles up the 
Maumee ; and the Delawares on the Muskingum 
River. It was the most formidable project yet 
undertaken. 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 203 

All assemMod at Chillicotlie, an old rendezvous. 
The chiefs of the several tribes met in the long 
council room for consultation. They debated long 
upon their plans for the utter destruction of the 
pale-faces, whose evidences of power began to accu- 
mulate with such rapidity. This was their last and 
greatest effort against the increasing strength and 
numbers of the white settlers. 

Not far from Boonesborough was a place known 
as Bryant's Station. Bryant had married Boone's 
sister, and was slain in an attack made by a party 
of Indians, some two years before. It was the 10th 
of AuiTust, when some five hundred Indians and 
Canadians fell upon this place, and assailed it with 
all possible fury. The fight was hot, and after a 
short time, the savages having lost many of their 
number, they retreated. There were four white men 
killed within the enclosure, and thirty Indians outr 
side. The latter, after vainly trying to frighten the 
garrison with their idle threats, left in great haste 
aiid confusion. 

The tidings spread. Boone and his comrades 
held a council of war, the moment he heard of Avhat 
was going on. Cols. Todd, Boone, Harlan, and 
Trigg led off soldiers to the rescue forthwith. A 
son of Boone went along with him, named Israel, 



204 DANIEL BOONE. 

and also a brother. The men named above were 
the bravest of the brave ; their names are held in 
honored remembrance throughout the length and 
breadth of Kentucky. In this council of war which 
was held, Boone urged that instant pursuit of the 
Indians be made. There- was a divided state of 
sentiment on the subject among the leaders con- 
vened. A great deal has been said and written 
about the motive that actuated this one and that, in 
the council ; and unworthy sentiments have been 
recklessly attributed to one and another by men who 
could have, apparently, no personal interest in mis- 
representing the facts. While they were delib- 
erating, however, whether to go on or wait for the 
coming up of a party under Col. Logan, one of the 
officers in the council, McGary, broke short all 
further hesitation by shrilly sounding the war-whoop, 
and declaring that all were cowards who would not 
follow him ! He said he would take them to the 
Indians at once. The greater part were unable to 
resist the impulse of the moment, and started off 
headlong, arms in hand. Boone and Todd, however, 
remained behind. They felt that nothing but 
increased danger could come of such rashness. 

Scouts were sent out, therefore, by Boone, who 
examined closely all the ravines near the Licking 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 205 

Eiver. They came back and said that all was clear, 
but still Boone was not satisfied. Yet he went forth 
after the rest, prepared to give the enemy fight 
wherever he might fall in with them. The line of 
battle was formed by the troops, in regular order. 
Col. Todd, who was commander-in-chief, led the 
centre ; Col. Trigg commanded the right ; and 
Boone, the left. The river bends at this point like 
a horse-shoe. Trigg led on his men unsuspectingly. 
Suddenly a fire from the long grass belched forth 
into their ranks, carrying confusion and dismay 
everywhere. They were caught in an ambuscade, 
and that was just what Boone tried to have them 
look out for ; this was the penalty they paid for their 
rashness. 

Next, the Indians on the right fired their voUey, 
which proved to be deadly in the extreme. Trigg's 
men broke and ran, and Todd's received the fire. It 
carried havoc and death into the ranks. And now 
nearly five hundred armed men, all foes, rose upon 
the settlers' force, and completed their work of deso- 
lation. It appeared as if warriors started out of the 
very ground, so thickly did they spring up. Tlie 
whites held their ground with wonderful courage, 
and returned the enemy's fire as fast as they could. 
Yet it was almost a carnage, on that bloody day. 
18 



206 DANIEL BOONE. 

Col. Todd was mortally wounded, but kept his horse, 
and gave his orders while the blood flowed freely 
from his wounds. For the space of fifteen minutes 
this sort of work was kept up^ the savages at last 
bringing the tomahawk into play, as well as the rifle 
which they had just learned to use. All the way to 
the river, the ground was strewn with the wreck of 
that brave little army of settlers. Boone's own son, 
Israel, who had insisted on coming with him, was 
slain, and Boone found himself almost surrounded, 
when he attempted to make his retreat. He was 
determined to bring away with him his dying son, 
but the attempt nearly cost him his own life. To 
leave his child behind him, no matter wliat the cost 
of bringing him along, was the hardest thought for 
his fatherly heart. The dying looks of his offspring 
plead eloquently with his feelings. His resolution 
was on the instant taken. 

Few men, even among pioneers and hunters, could 
have cut their way through such difficulties and dan- 
gers as Boone did. The savages seemed to start up 
out of the very grass, firing at him with every step 
he took. The ravine through which he dashed was 
full of them. There was still a ford for him to 
cross, which lie succeeded in doing by swimming. 
The others were attacked in the middle of the river 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 207 

by the red-skinned villains, and bloody work was 
made in tlie encounter. They fought hand to hand 
in the water, and the red streaks showed what exe- 
cution was done. It was an awful crisis for that 
body of brave troops. They seemed to have come 
out purposely for their own useless sacrifice. A sin- 
gle act of rashness had accomplished all this. Had 
they followed the counsels of Daniel Boone, this last 
and severest trial might have been avoided, and they 
might have caught the Indians in a trap, instead of 
being caught in theirs. 

He was unwilling to leave the body of his boy 
behind him, and so he grasped it in his arms and 
bore it away with him in his headlong flight. But 
it was a great hindrance to his own safety. He 
could have got on much faster without such an 
encumbrance. Still, it was a hard matter indeed 
for him to think of running from that dearly loved 
child, and leaving him to the tender mercies of a 
horde of savages, to be scalped, and tomahawked, and 
cruelly disfigured. No ; his strong affection asserted 
itself at the moment ; he could not permit himself to 
hesitate, and he flew with the senseless form in his 
arms. The Indians were on this side and that. 
The farther he went, the more densely did they seem 
to spring up around him. When he had reached a 



208 DANIEL BOONE. 

particular point in the ravine, where the shadows 
slept invitingly for secresy, a tomahawk was brand- 
ished over his head, and the burly form of a giant 
savage arose to dispute the way with him. Boone 
saw that it was action or death, and that instantly. 
He dropped the body of his son, quickly raised his 
rifle to his shoulder, and shot the savage dead on the 
spot I The thought of the loss of this other child, 
maddened the lion-hearted man, and nothing 
was then beyond the range of his infuriated 
will. 

This was the great battle of the Blue Licks. In 
this encounter there were slain sixty-seven of the 
American force, including Cols. Todd and Trigg 
themselves. Boone became, in the retreat, separated 
from the survivors of this massacre, but as he 
thoroughly knew all the ways of the wdlderness, he 
was not long in finding his friends again. It was a 
sad topic of reflection for him, this battle of the Blue 
Licks. He sent in the official report of the same, 
being the surviving officer in command of the regi- 
ment, to Gov. Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, the 
father of the late President Harrison, and one of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence, from 
•which we extract as follows : — 




liOONE WAKING ITIS COMPANION IN THE NIGHT. 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 209 

The report to Governor Harrison is dated, — 

" August 30th, 1782. 
" On the 16th instant, a large number of 
Indians, with some white men, attacked one of 
our frontier stations, known by the name of 
Bryant's Station. The siege continued from 
about sunrise till about ten o'clock the next 
day, when they marched off. Notice being given 
to the neighboring stations, we immediately 
raised one hundred and eighty -one horsemen, 
commanded by Colonel John Todd, including 
some of the Lincoln County Militia, commanded 
by Colonel Trigg, and pursued them about forty 
miles. 

" On the 19th instant, we discovered the 
enemy lying in wait for us. On this dis- 
covery, we formed one column with one single 
line, and marched up in their front, within 
about forty yards, before there was a gun 
firedr 

From the manner in which we had formed, 
it fell to my lot to bring on the attack. This 
was done with a very heavy fire on both 
sides, and extended back of the line to Col. 
Trigg, where the enemy was so strong they 
rushed up and broke the right wing at the 
18^* 



210 DANIEL BOONE. 

first fire. Thus the enemy got in our rear, 
with the loss of seventy-seven of our men, and 
twelve wounded. Aftenvards we were reinforced 
by Col. Logan, which made our force four hundred 
and sixty men. 

*' We marched again to the battle-ground ; but, 
finding the enemy had gone, we proceeded to 
bury the dead. We found forty-three on the 
ground, and many lay about which we could not 
stav to find, hunn-rv and wearv as we were, and 
somewhat dubious that the enemy might not 
have gone off* quite. By the sign, we thought 
that the Indians had exceeded four hundred ; 
while the whole of the militia of the county 
does not amount to more than one hundred 
and thirty. From these facts, your Excellency 
may form an idea of our situation. I know that 
your ovm circumstances are cntical, but are u^ 
to be wholly forgotten ? I hope not. I trust about 
five hundred men may be sent to our assistance 
immediately. -^ '•' ^ '- I have 

encouraged the people in this county all I could; 
but I can no longer justify them or myself to risk 
our lives here under such extraordinary hazards. 
The inhabitants of this county are very much 
alarmed at the thoughts of the Indians bringing 



MISFORTUNES AND TRIALS. 211 

another campaign into our country tins fall. If 
this should he the case, it would hreak up these set- 
tlements. I hope, therefore, your Excellency will 
take the matter into your consideration, and send 
us some relief as quick as possible. 

" These are my sentiments, without consulting 
any person." 



212 
CHAPTER XII. 

LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 

THE disaster at the Blue Licks put fury into 
the hearts of all the white men round about. 
General Clarke had a large force under his 
command at the Falls of the Ohio, where the city of 
Louisville is located, which he held for the purpose 
of acting on the defensive, and restraining the Indian 
outlaws ; but the moment the news of the battle of 
the Blue Licks reached him, he resolved to put forth 
his strongest exertions, and strike terror into the 
hearts of the foe wherever he could find them. 

An expedition against the savages, therefore, was 
forthwith undertaken. The little army under Col. 
Clarke pushed on by forced marches in the direction of 
Chillicothe, and had come within two miles of the vil- 
lage before their approach was discovered. Had it not 
been for this unexpected occurrence, it is likely that 
the butchery of the Indians would have been immense. 
But being apprised of their danger, and knowing in 
w^hat a large force the invading whites were approach- 
ing, and, above all, feeling the deep guilt on their 
own hands for which the latter were coming to be 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 213 

avenged, they stole off from their settlement as 
shadows go skulking farther and farther into the 
forest at the approach of the morning sun. In a few 
minutes, Chillicothe was a "deserted village" indeed. 
There was not a red-skin to be seen within its 
limits. 

The infuriated white men came hurrying up, bent 
on destruction alone. They applied the axe and the 
torch to the lodges of their enemy, and ere long 
there was not one standing to tell the simple tale 
that an Indian village had ever existed there. All 
the other villages in the vicinity were destroyed also, 
root and branch. Utter desolation marked the course 
of the avenging white man. Boone himself stood once 
more on the spot where he had been held a captive, 
and the adopted son of an Indian sachem. How 
different must have been his feelings now ! 

The savages learned a valuable lesson from this vis- 
itation of the white settlers, for they found out that 
there was that in them which nothing could conquer 
or overcome ; the more they were assailed, the 
stronger they rose to meet their assailants every 
time. This last blow, in particular, was the heaviest 
that had yet been dealt out upon the Indian 
power. 

About this time, too, came the termination of the 



214 DANIEL BOONE. 

seven years' struggle^ between the Colonies and 
Great Britain. Every sign naturally promised peace. 
Emigration to the West now set in like the steady * 
flow of a stream. Settlers came out into the vast 
tracts with their families, eager to create a new life 
and better fortunes for themselves, without the delays 
and perplexities incident to existence in the older 
States. The land of promise was rapidly filling up. 
Farms were taken on this side and that, and log 
cabins dotted the pleasant landscapes. The settler's 
axe was heard far and near. The danger from 
Indian invasion was not, to be sure, over yet, but the 
wliite man took courao-e in the midst of friends and 
coadjutors, and went forward with his designs with 
all possible energy. Boone could now look about 
him with feelings of lively joy and thankfulness. 
He was the first white man who had made known to 
the rest the existence of such vast treasures. He 
was, as it were, the Columbus of this splendid terri- 
tory. Through toil and danger, by effort and by 
bloody sacrifices, he had made good his claim to the 
land whereon he, with the rest, had settled himself, 
and, if any living man was entitled to his reward, he 
was that very man. 

He settled himself down quietly and peacefully on ^ 
his tract in Fayette County, and devoted himself to 



LAND AND LAND-0\YNING. 215 

agriculture. It was necessary, however, that he 
should still keep his unerring rifle within reach of 
his hand, and that he should not for a moment omit 
any of that prudence and caution on which alone 
depended his personal safety. His attention was, as 
an agriculturist, given to the raising of tobacco, 
among other things, though he never ceased to hunt 
as he had always done from his youth up, following 
the course of the wild animal with all the zest that 
was inborn with his simple nature. At no time did 
he think of hanging up his rifle over his hearth, with 
the intention of not taking it down again. It had 
been his tried and trusty friend. No companion, 
unless it were his faithful wife, had been truer to him 
than that. He might be a soldier ; he might like- 
wise be an agriculturist, tilling the land for others' 
uses ; but he could not help being a Imrder^ while he 
lived among men. Though his fame was not thus 
acquired, still this pursuit was the single aim, and 
solace, and delight of his life. 

While engaged in tilling the soil, in the peaceful 
possession of his farm, the following incident is nar- 
rated of the manner in which he succeeded in escaping 
from the clutches of four Indians, who had watched 
their opportunity to capture him, and who certainly 
believed that this time they had got him. The story 



216 DANIEL BOONE. 

was told at the wedding of his grand-daughter, not 
many months before he died. 

His tobacco-patch was situated at some little dis- 
tance from his cabin, and near by it he had erected 
a shed, or shelter, for curing the stalks. This opera- 
tion consists in splitting the long tobacco-stalks, as 
soon as they are ripe enough, and stringing them 
along on poles, or sticks, some four feet in length. 
These sticks are then held up on stakes again, 
arranged in tiers, one above the other, till the roof 
of the shed is finally reached. Boone's shed was 
about twelve feet high, and there were three tiers of 
sticks, or poles. The lower tier was hung with 
tobacco, and had become pretty dry already. He 
had climbed up one day, therefore, to remove this 
tier to the upper part of the shed, in order to make 
room for more, when suddenly four stalwart savages 
entered the door, each with a gun in his hand, and 
accosted him. 

" Ah, Boone ! " said they, " Now we got you ! 
You no get away more ! We carry you off to Chilli- 
cothe this time ! You no cheat us any more ! " 

Our hero looked down upon them, and in an 
instant comprehended his danger. He saw that they 
all had guns, and he had none himself. To oppose 
them openly would result in his swift destruction. 



/I 



LAND AND LAND-OWNTNG. 217 

Therefore he had recourse to his old knowledge 
of the Indian character, and instantly resolved to try 
stratagem. He began by parleying with them. 

" Ah," said he, in reply, " old friend, glad to 
see you ! '^ and he begged them to be patient till he 
could come down. But first he must needs see to his 
tobacco. They showed considerable impatience at 
his delay, and began to be suspicious that he might 
be studying up some trick by which to deceive 
them and effect his escape. But he told them not to 
be in too great a hurry, that he would get through 
with his job soon, and begged them to watch him 
just as closely as they could. In doing this, of 
course he knew that their faces would be turned up 
toward him. 

He was still making talk with them, they watch- 
ing him the while, and he promising that they should 
hftve all his tobacco when it was cured, when, getting 
all the dried stalks and leaves directly over their 
faces, he suddenly turned them so as to fall exactly 
upon them. At the same moment he gathered his 
own arms full of the leaves, and jumped down upon 
them, completely filling their eyes and mouth with 
the fragments and dust, blinding them, and throwing 
them into convulsions of coughing. They fell to the 
ground, unable to see what was the matter, or 
19 



218 DANIEL BOONE. 

whither their prisoner had gone. He ran for his 
cabin, where the means of defence were at liand, and 
the red-skinned rascals continued to wallow about 
on the ground for some minutes, unable to find their 
way out of the place. They called him loudly by 
name, and cursed him with all the phrases used for 
that purpose in their tongue. 

With increased emigration into Kentucky, the 
farms presented a much better appearance, and the 
settlers' cabins wore a look of more cost and atten- 
tion. The latter were always built of logs, and in a 
rough manner at best ; but they served well as a 
protection against both an enemy and the weather. 
These houses, too, had the look peculiar to warlike 
times upon them. There were gates to them that 
might be shut, like those of a regularly built fort, 
when the foe was seen to approach, and they bade 
defiance alike to their strategy and assaults. Then 
there was space enough within the enclosure to retain 
cattle and horses, by whose help a siege of consider- 
able length might be bravely sustained. But with 
the dawn of peace, these precautions were neglected, 
and finally soon fell into entire disuse. The log- 
house of the laborious fanner best told the story of 
the changed times. 

Kentucky had her own courts now, too, Virginia 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 219 

having granted that boon to her in the year 1782 ; 
so it was not necessary now fcr the settlers to make 
the long journey to Richmond in order to settle or 
substantiate a land-claim, or perform any other 
business of a legal character. These courts right 
at home were the greatest blessing, and helped won- 
d<3rfully in giving strength to the fast growing 
State. The first court held in Kentucky was held 
in Harrodsburg, but its sessions were afterwards 
removed to Danville. The first Judges of the Ken- 
tucky district w^ere John Floyd and Samuel Mc 
Dowell ; names that stand among the highest in 
the Old Dominion to-day, and of which their inher- 
itors have every reason to feel proud. 

In the year 1784, matters had begun to assume 
in Kentucky a peaceful and settled aspect. The 
narrative of Boone, dictated by himself, comes to a 
elose at this date. His narrative closes, very aptly, 
with a certain document in relation to the Indians, 
to which Boone calls particular attention. We copy 
it here. It represents to be the speech of a govern- 
ment agent, named Dalton, to the savages, and their 
reply. The reader w^ill see that they give, as the 
reason of their alliance with the English, the pov- 
erty from which they suffered. They make a beg- 
ging request, too, for rum at the agent's hands, 



220 DANIEL BOONE. 

whicli was, without doubt, given to them. This is 
the white man's speech : 

" My Children ; — What I have often told you is 
now come tc pass. This day I received news from my 
Great Chief, at the Falls of the Ohio. Peace is made 
with the enemies of America. The white flesh — the 
Americans, French, Spanish, Dutch, and English — 
this day smoked out of the peace-pipe. The toma- 
hawk is buried, and they are now friends. I am told 
the Shawanese, Delawares, Chickasaws, Cherokees, 
and all other red flesh, have taken the Long Knife by 
the hand. They have given up to them the prisoners 
that were in their nation. 

"My Children on Wabash — Open your ears, 
and let what I tell you sink into your hearts. You 
know me. Near twenty years I have been among 
you. The Long Knife is my nation. I know their 
hearts ; peace they carry in one hand, and war in the 
other. I leave you to yourselves to judge. Con- 
sider, and now accept the one or the other. We never 
beg peace of our enemies. If you love your women 
and children, receive the belt of wampum I present 
you. Return me my flesh you have in your villages, 
and the horses you stole from my people in Kentucky. 
Your corn-fields were never disturbed by the Long 
Knife. Your women and children lived quiet in their 
houses, while your warriors were killing and robbing 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING 221 

my people. All this you know is the truth. This is 
the last time I shall speak to you. 1 have waited six 
months to hear you speak, and get my people from 
you. In ten nights I shall leave the Wabash, to see 
my Great Chief at the Falls of the Ohio, where he 
Avill be glad to hear from your own lips what you have 
to say. 

" Here is tobacco I give you ; smoke and consider 
what I have said. Then I delivered one belt of blue 
and white wampum, and said, Piankashaw, speak, speak 
to the Americans." 

To which the Piankashaw chieftain made reply 
in the following strain and style : 

"My Great Father, the Long Knife: — You 
have been many years among us. You have suffered 
by us. We still hope you will have pity and compas- 
•sion upon us, on our women and children. The day 
is clear. The sun shines on us, and the good news of 
peace appears in our faces. This day, my father, this 
is the day of joy to the Wabash Indians. With one 
tongue we now speak. We accept your peace-belt. 
We return God thanks. You are the man that 
delivered us what we long wished for — peace with the 
white flesh. My father, we have many times coun- 
selled before you knew us ; and you know how some 
of us suffered before. We received the tomahawk 
19* 



222 DANIEL BOONS.. 

from the English. Poverty forced us to it. We were 
attended by other nations. We are sorry for it. We 
this day collect the bones of our friends that long ago 
were scattered upon the earth. We bury them in one 
grave. We thus plant the tree of peace, that God 
may spread branches, so that we can all be secured 
from bad weather. , They smoke as brothers out of 
the peace-pipe we now present to you. Here, my 
father, is the pipe that gives us joy. Smoke out of 
it. Our warriors are glad you are the man we present 
it to. You see, father, we have buried the tomahawk 
— we now make a great chain of friendship, never to be 
broken. And now, as one people, smoke out of your 
pipe. 

" My father, we know God was angry with us for 
stealing your horses, and disturbing your people. He 
has sent us so much snow and cold weather that God 
himself killed all your horses with our own. We are 
now a poor people. God, we hope, will help us ; and 
our father, the Long Knife, have pity and compassion 
on our women and children. Your flesh, my father, 
is well that is among us ; we shall collect them all 
together, when they come in from hunting. Don't be 
sorry, father, all the prisoners taken at Kentucky are 
alive and well. We love them, and so do our young 
women. Some of your people mend our guns, and 
others tell us they can make rum out of corn. Those 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 223 

are now the same as we. In one moon after this, we 
will go with them to their friends in Kentucky. Some 
of your people will now go with Castca, a chief of our 
nation, to see his great father, the Long Knife, at the 
Falls of the Ohio. 

*' IMy father, this being the day of joy to the Wa- 
bash Indians, we beg a little drop of your milky to let 
our warriors see it came from your own breast. We 
were born and raised in the woods. We could never 
learn to make rum. God has made the white flesh 
masters of the world. They make everything, and we 
all love rum. 

*' Then they delivered three strings of blue and 
white wampum, and the coronet of peace." 

It seemed, however, for years after peace with 
Great Britain was concluded, as if it were next to 
impossible to make the Indians quiet again. They 
Tiad been stirred up by this late British alliance to 
do what otherwise they might not have thought of 
doing, and it was difficult for them to unlearn les- 
sons that had been taught them so thoroughly. 
The Atlantic States were in the enjoyment of peace 
and concord, but Kentucky was still a land disputed 
between the settlers and the red men, and the latter 
had not yet made up their minds that it would be 
necessary for them to surrender their rights to it. 



224 DANIEL BOONS. 

Ifc wiis reported about among tlie diiTcrent settle- 
ments, in fact, that the Indians meant to make 
at least one more rally for the destruction of the 
whites and the recovery of their former rule, and 
that, to this end, most extensive preparations were 
making among a number of the tribes for a final 
grand descent upon them. These rumors occasioned 
a great deal of anxiety on the part of the settlers, 
compelling them to make unusual efforts to provide 
for the threatened emergency. They held a large 
assembly of their leading men at DanviJle, and 
counselled of what was best to be done. It was a 
matter of some doubt with them how far they could 
properly proceed in the enrollment of troops, since 
they were but a dependent colony, and had no 
original authority to create armies ; and this, among 
other questions, was, without doubt one of the first 
circumstances that led to the separation, seven years 
afterwards, of Kentucky from her parent State, Vir- 
ginia. The disputes about titles to land, however, 
entered as deeply into the subject as anything else. 
The rumored invasion by the Indian tribes never 
took place. They had probably not forgotten the 
devastation of their villages by the infuriated bands 
of white soldiers, and may have been deterred by 
such considerations from undertaking what they 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 225 

knew would result in a more terrible punishment 
than any with which they had yet been visited. 

Then followed convention after convention on the 
part of the settlers, to take measures for securing 
independent authority to the newly settled country, 
and otherwise make themselves known and felt as 
an individual power. These assemblies were all 
held in Dauville, and from their frequency through 
a long course of years gave a peculiar character to 
the place in which they were held. Daniel Boone, 
however, took no active part in them, so far as we 
are able to learn. He was no talking man, either. 
If the forest was to be explored, or a fort was to be 
built, or Indians were to be repelled in one of their 
crafty and murderous attacks, it was he who knew 
how to lead off in the business ; but the work of 
talking he left to other tongues. 

We cannot follow out the history of these numer- 
ous conventions, whose labors finally resulted in the 
total independence of Kentucky as a State ; nor, 
indeed, is it at all necessary. It does not closely 
enough relate to the personal experiences of the 
subject of our sketch. Still, it would be doing him 
great injustice to leave a single reader to suppose 
that he ceased to take the deepest interest in the 
fortunes of the noble State whose foundations were , 



226 DANIEL BOONE. 

laid by his own hand. He was not the person to be 
indifferent when all the work he had thus far done 
was trembling in the balance against the selfishness 
or assumed authority of other men. 

These Kentucky conventions brought out before 
the country some of the best talent it has ever had 
the good fortune to impress into its service. There 
was John Marshall, for instance, afterwards Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 
who was the Secretary of one of the earliest of these 
meetings. He had just commenced the practise of 
law, having completed his legal studies by the aid 
of fire-light, and being entirely destitute as yet of 
money or friends. Then there was Gen. Wilkinson, 
too, whose name is held in the highest regard by all 
true Kentuckians to this day, for his gallant services 
at all times on behalf of the State to which lie had 
given his heart. The delegation that was sent to 
Eichmond, to lay the case thus made up by the con- 
vention before the authorities of the Old Dominion, 
was remarkably able, and performed its errand with 
unswerving fidelity. In this important service, 
John Marshall played no unimportant part. 

But the subject was meantime assuming a new 
shape before the United States Congress. After the 
passage of sundry resolutions, this way and that, on 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING 227 

the part of Virginia and the Federal Congress, and 
after a great many conventions were held in Dan- 
ville on the part of the persevering Kentuckians, 
Kentucky was finally admitted into the Union as a 
sovereign State, hy Act of Congress specially passed 
for that purpose, on the 4th day of February, 
1791. It was a glorious triumph, though no more 
than a deserved one, for the brave hunters and 
pioneers who had taken their lives in their hands to 
found a new State in the wilderness. 

All this while, Boone was engaged in the quiet pur- 
suit of his agricultural calling. He was essentially 
a man of peace. He delighted not in wrangles, 
discussions, or misunderstandings ; and though he 
never faltered when it was fit that he should throw 
his influence on the side of the independence of the 
land he loved, yet he preferred to be found doitig, 
'rather than talking. He could hunt better than he 
could play the delegate. He loved the land itself, 
crowned with glory as it was, far better than to hear 
dry discussions about titles to strips of it. 

For some seven or eight years, therefore, he 
remained in a state of semi-solitude, with his family 
around him. The current of his life now flowed on 
so evenly that it would be difficult to say what inci- 
dents ever occurred to make even a ripple in its sur- 



228 DANIEL BOONE. 

face. He tilled his fields and was at peace. He 
made his rifle his chosen companion still, and lived 
over again in the surrounding forest the simplicity 
and the heauty of that early pioneer life when all 
Kentucky was an unbroken hunting range for his 
feet. His dog followed him still, faithful to the 
noble master it knew so thoroughly. His cabin 
held enough of the necessaries, and the comforts, 
too, of life, and there he taught himself how to be 
truly and solidly happy. He watched the course of 
the sun and the seasons. With the ways of the 
wild beasts he continued, as in other days, to be 
familiar. There was scarcely a path in the woods 
which his keen eye could not detect, whether worn 
by the savage, or the beast he loved to pursue. 
There was the same grandeur in nature for his eye, 
and all the old and lofty influences crowded in upon 
his childlike soul. No man, either, felt more deeply 
the sweet enjoyments of home, though that home 
was continually beset with fears and surrounded 
with living and lurking dangers. 

But he was made to understand, in time, that set- 
tling up a new country is not civilizing it. The 
forming of a State Constitution did not go to make 
him any more secure in the possession of his lands. 
Where he once held without dispute — except, per- 



LAND AND LAND-OWNING. 229 

haps, from the Indian — he now held at the mercy of 
those whose paper claims and pretensions were the 
most offensive things imaginable. He felt, in other 
words, the approach of those influences peculiar to 
the civilized life we make a boast of ; and he knew 
that he was less secure now in the enjoyment of his 
land and home than when he had non^ but the 
red man for his enemy. It is a damning commen- 
tary to make on the character of our modern life 
and habits ; yet in Boone's case it was a perfectly 
true and proper one. 

On a sudden, the general disputes about the titles 
to land now broke out. Of all the men livins; at 
that day in Kentucky, Boone thought himself the 
last one likely to be disturbed in the enjoyment of 
what he had. He had been unfortunate once, and 
lost all ; but in the interval he thought he had made 
^11 up again. How was he doomed to the bitterest 
of disappointments I The title, however it might 
have been concocted, was put before the occupancy I 
The speculator could drive out the brave and self- 
sacrificing pioneer ! The penniless adventurer, with 
scheming and heartless attorneys at his back, could 
eject the man who for years had periled all for the 
very land of which he was then possessed ! And this 
the law permitted. There seemed to be no help for 



230 DANIEL BOONE. 

it. The authority of the original pioneer and dis- 
coverer ^\ as not accounted equal to that of the man 
who held cunningly drafted instruments in his hand, 
and could quote nice technicalities in his favor. 

It was not a very long story, nor are the details at 
this day known ; hut it hrings a hlush of indignation 
to the cheek of every true man, to think that the 
cruel result came at last. Boone was turned out of 
his home, and his farm hecame the property of 
another ! He who had found this heautiful country 
in order that others might enjoy it along with him, 
had now no place, save perhaps the forest itself, in 
which to lay his head ! 

It is too sorry a fact for the men of these times to 
dwell upon. 



231 
CHAPTER XIII. 

A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 

IN the year 1790, Boone made a visit to the 
place where he was born, in Pennsylvania. 
Of course his journey lay through the almost 
trackless woods, with scarce a sign of the white set- 
tler anywhere along his lonely route. It was a 
pious deed on his part, betokening the thoroughly 
true nature that slept beneath his rough exterior. 
His world had so far proved a hard world, filled as 
it had been with the most sober experiences ; but he 
did not repine, nor grow misanthropic. When he 
began to see the necessity of removing again, 
he affectionately cast a lingering look back at the 
place of his birth, and determined to visit it once 
more while he had it in his power to do so. Per- 
haps, too, he thought there might be some chance 
for him, with his family, near the spot where he 
drew his first breath ; the people might be more 
kindly disposed to him there, or he possibly had a 
secret and hitherto unexpressed desire to lay his 
bones at last where he was born. 

At any rate, though we have no record of this 



232 DANIEL BOONE. 

journey back to Pennsylvania, it is pleasant to 
know that his family friends and acquaintances 
received him with marked kindness and attention. 
His services as an explorer of the wilderness were 
by no means unknown to them there, for his fame 
had traversed all sections of the land, long ago. 
Pennsylvania had grown wealthy and powerful since 
the days when his father's family left its limits, 
making a slow procession southward into Carolina. 
Compared with the wild aspect of Kentucky, it pre- 
sented the appearance of an old and perfect civili- 
zation. But his visit was a brief one. He felt 
other calls on his time and attention. 

We cannot say how long afterwards it was, but it 
is certain that it was about this time (1790), when 
he made up his mind to leave Kentucky forever. 
He who had made the discovery of this noblest of 
States, was now compelled to exile himself because 
others wanted the land he certainly thought his 
own. It shows how indifferent the current generar 
tion is to its real benefactors. It is much too 
busy about its own selfish interests, to give its 
attention to the men who are above thrusting them- 
selves into notice, and who do i;iot perform great 
services with the hope of setting up some claim 
afterwards. They let him depart, nor felt a pang 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 233 

of remorse that he had silently turned his back 
upon them. 

It would he a sad enough sketch, did we possess 
the skill to present it, the feelings of this self-deny- 
ing and truly noble man, as he took his little 
family and started off for Virginia. He must have 
thought of the time when he came into these wilds, 
with his brother for his only company, and that 
brother now sleeping in death from a murderous 
attack by the savages. He could not but recall the 
winter he passed alone in the wilderness, with not 
so much as a dog or a horse for a companion, and 
without a particle of sugar or salt. He probably 
recollected the sad scene through which his wife was 
compelled to go when the little party of settlers 
wjis suddenly set upon by the savages in ambush, 
and his first-born son was cruelly slain. Nor was 
he forgetful, either, of the death of his last son, 
Israel, whose corpse he brought away from the scene 
of the Indian massacre at Blue Licks, lest it might 
be mutilated by his old foes, the red men. All 
these facts lay deeply imbedded in his memory ; and 
at the time of his final departure from the midst of 
a selfish and ungrateful body of settlers, he must 
have felt them rise to the surface with unwonted 
influence and power. 
20- 



234 DANIFJ. BOONE. 

He was a poor man. The world was all before 
him again. Driven from one spot, he mighl go to 
another. His faithful and devoted wife was still 
faithful and devoted, even if all the rest of the 
world forgot him. She was willing to walk by his 
side wherever he went. And they went slowly and 
sadly out of Kentucky together. 

It must have started tears in his eyes, when he 
looked for the last time on the fort his hands had 
assisted to erect in Boonesborough. Every rood of 
ground there was vocal to his heart. He had trod- 
den every foot, and defended it with his own blood. 
Yet there was not room for him there any longer. 
The very Indians he had assisted to expel, were 
hardly more exiles than himself, or more gratefully 
thought of by those who remained behind. Twenty 
years before he might call himself — more truly 
than any of those who came after him — the owner 
of the whole of this noble tract of land ; now he 
was driven forth from its limits, unable to find an 
acre that he might legally style his own. 

The tract of land on which he had made arrange- 
ments to settle in Virginia, lay on the Kenhawa 
Eiver. It was not like the land he had owned in 
and near Boonesborough ; yet it was, to all intents 
and purposes, his own. There was not that margin 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 235 

in his new home for farming operations which he 
enjoyed in Kentucky, nor did he appear particularly 
sorry that it was so. He had had enough of semi- 
civilized life ; now he meant to return to hunting 
and the solitudes again. And in this Virginia 
abode he was undisturbed in the enjoyment of his 
native propensity. The old delights of woodcraft 
he renewed in all their freshness. He was familiar 
once more with the fox and the red deer, the wolf 
and the bear. The winds fanned his weather-worn 
face, and brought back to his heart the old dreams 
of liberty and peace. In the silence of the forest 
he felt his soul grow calm again. The sense of 
hardship and wrong that had recently ruffled it, 
disturbing the even flow of his happiness, would all 
be sunk in the depths of the stream that once more 
y flowed on as placidly as ever. This solitary hunter- • 
life was Boone^s true life. He was of that rare 
class of souls, like Audubon^s, which live the most 
profoundly when closest to nature, and in whose 
ears the sound of human disputes are but precur- 
sors of the death of all further enjoyment. 

His gun was at this time his constant companion. 
Its sharp ring awakened the wild echoes, far and 
near, and seemed to bring them around him like 
spirits, questioning him of his business and his 



236 DANIEL BOONE. 

name. Mr. Peck, who wrote a fine sketch of his 
life, says of the habits of the Hunter, which will 
apply to the same period of which we are now writ- 
ing : " I have often seen him get up early in the 
morning at this season, walk hastily out, and look 
anxiously to the woods, and snufF the autumnal 
winds with the highest rapture ; then return into 
the house, and cast a quick and attentive look at 
the rifle, which was always suspended to a joist by 
a couple of buck horns, or little forks. The hunt- 
ing dog, understanding the intentions of his master, 
would wag his tail, and, by every blandishment in 
his power, express his readiness to accompany him 
to the woods. A day was soon appointed for the 
march of the cavalcade to the camping place. Two 
or three horses, furnished with pack-saddles, were 
laden with flour, Indian meal, blankets, and every 
thing requisite for the use of the hunter." 

In the Kenhawa country, the life of Boone was not 
altogether free from the interference of the Indians, 
as it had been before. He was still obliged to guard 
against their craft and their treachery ; if they could 
take him at an advantage, they certainly would. It 
was rumored in Philadelphia, in the year 1793, that 
the Indians had made an irruption into that country, 
captured Daniel Boone, and carried him away, no 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 237 

one .knew whither. But such was not to he his fate. 
It is quite likely that he would never have heen 
heard of again by civilized persons, had they once 
succeeded in carrying him off. But that they were 
not yet able to do. He was ever wary and watchful, 
knowing his danger. His long acquaintance with 
the habits of Indians, proved ample protection for 
him, when others would most likely have fallen a 
sacrifice to the superior sagacity and craft of his red- 
skinned foe. 

It was while living thus alone and forgotten in the 
wilds of Virginia, that news came to Boone of a 
beautiful tract of country in the far northwest, then 
known as Upper Louisiana. It belonged at that 
time to Spain. From time to time, one and another 
came along with fresh intelligence of this great land, 
picturing it as surpassing in beauty anything they 
had ever rested their eyes on. Their stories fired 
the heart of the old Hunter anew. His imagination 
became inflamed again. His eye kindled, and he 
almost felt that the whole map of the country 
unrolled itself even then before him. 

And there was another argument, and for his mind 
a very strong one — they told him of the simple 
state of the Spanish laws on the subject of land. He 
had had truly bitter experiences in connection with 



238 DANIEL BOONE. 

tliis matter, and whatever reminded him again of a 
country where the intricate and artfully-framed 
statutes in reference to the ownership of land, would 
be very likely to attract him beyond the power of 
his will to resist. He heard all the stories of the 
new land with delight. He sat alone and pondered 
these things. Having ruptured those ties of affec- 
tion that held him to Kentucky, he cared not now 
whether he remained long in any one place or not ; 
henceforth he was a citizen of the world, and could 
make his home as readily in one place as another. 
It was true, he would become the subject of a foreign 
power by emigrating to Upper Louisiana ; but, as he 
said himself about it, '' it was the country, not the 
government, of which he was in pursuit.^' 

He was not long in making up his mind to leave 
the place where he was, and go out westward again. 
He would cross the flood of the Great Father of 
Waters, and be forever beyond the reach of those 
whose fraud and trickery had beggared him. The 
very resolution seemed to give him freedom again. 

It has always been said of his free movements, 
that he went farther away from neighbors because he 
disliked the society of man; but, however just the 
remark might be, considering the manner in which 
his own race had treated him, there is no reason to 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAPl WEST. 239 

believe it true. Daniel Boone was not a misanthrope 
by nature. No man loved home and family with a 
tenderer devotion. He had an undying love for the 
solitudes and secresies of nature, it is true ; but that 
could never have soured his heart to the blessed 
influences of home and friends, or shut out from it 
the sweet solaces their presence always brings. We 
find no proof, in any record that is to be seen, of 
the charge that has been so often brought against 
him ; on the contrary, we do know that he indulged 
in no idle or malicious complaining on account of his 
loss of money and lands, but, when he was cruelly 
robbed of all he had, he went quietly off into the 
wilderness again, determined to find peace, if he 
could not hold his home. There is every proof 
needed, that Boone's nature was sweet and whole, 
and that he lost none of his happiness by indulging 
in feelings akin either to malice or envy. 

The day came for him to start. It was the year 
1795. The Hunter was now sixty years old. It 
was rather late in life for him to make another 
remove, but his heart was as young as ever, and his 
limbs were viQ:orous and active. He saw the world 
with a keen and bright eye, and guided his rifle with 
a hand that did not tremble in the least. In the 
refinements of civilization, men would be called 



240 DANIEL BOONE. 

old at the age of sixty, and very few would be thought 
able to make even temporary journeys, over smooth 
roads, to stay among relatives and friends ; but 
Boone was so truly a child of nature that he was 
ready at any mpmont to accept all her hints, and 
could as easily remove his residence a thousand 
miles then as thirty years earlier. 

It is to be considered, too, that he already had a 
son and son-in-law in Upper Louisiana, so that he 
was only going among friends again. The induce- 
ments which were held out to him besides, were 
many and tempting. His fame had preceded him 
there. He was known not only as a successful 
pioneer, but as a famous fighter of the Indians. 
The Spanish authorities wanted to secure the acces- 
sion of as many men of his stamp as they could. It 
was plain to his mind, also, that the great northwest 
was the field for all exciting adventure in the future. 
There the world lay open for him ; in every other 
direction it seemed to be closed. 

Nor did he expect that he was always to remain a 
citizen of another country, for his eye took in the 
greatness to which the United States were already 
destined ; in truth, he was one of the most marked 
Manifest Destiny men of his generation. In the 



A NEW HOME IN TUE FAR WEST. 241 

course of his narrative, written down by Filson, and 
reviewed by himself, he says emphatically : 

" I grant it will be absurd to expect a free navi- 
gation of the Mississippi, whilst the Spaniards are in 
possession of New Orleans. To suppose it, is an 
idea calculated to impose only upon the weak. 
They may perhaps trade with us upon their own 
terms while they think it consistent with their inter- 
est, but no friendship in trade exists when interest 
expires ; therefore, when the western country becomes 
populous and ripe for trade, sound policy tells us the 
Floridas must be ours, too. According to the arti- 
cles of the Definitive Treaty, we are to have a free 
and unmolested navigation of the Mississippi ; but 
experience teaches mankind that treaties are not 
always to be depended upon, the most solemn being 
' broken. Hence, we learn that no one such put much 
faith in any State ; and the trade and commerce of 
the Mississippi Eiver cannot be so well secured in any 
other possession as our own." 

This was written eleven years before Boone made 
his removal to the very country of which he spoke. 

This was the fourth time he had packed together 
his family goods and gone off into a new land. 
Born in Pennsylvania, he went first to North Caro- 
lina, thence to Kentucky, next to Virginia, tempora- 
21 



242 DANIEL BOONE. 

rilj, and now to Upper Louisiana, for the remainder 
of his life. 

This journey was a long and weary one. It was not 
made by rail, or even by stage-coach ; nor were there 
canals stretching their sleepy lengths across the vast 
western States, connecting river with river, but his 
track lay along the line of the settlements, which were 
few and far between, until he reached the Mississippi 
Eiver. The mode of conveyance was of course on 
horseback, for there were no roads in those days for 
wagons. The reader will therefore appreciate the 
rare courage, as well as the resolute endurance, by 
whose aid his true wife was enabled to accompany him 
to his journey's end. 

The head-quarters of Spanish rule were then at 
New Orleans. Charles the Fourth was the monarch 
on the Spanish throne, but it is not likely that he 
had heard of this man whose rifle had thus opened 
the way for a nation. Yet his head officer at New 
Orleans had ; and it is gratifying to all Americans 
at this day to know that Delorne, the Lieutenant 
Governor, offered our hero a welcome to the new terri- 
tory every way befitting his name and fame. It was 
for the Spanish Governor's interest, it is true, to get 
such a man into the territory he held in the name 
of his roval master ; for the Indians were exceed- 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 243 

ingly troublesome, and he was anxious to augment 
the strength of the settlements as fast as he could. 

Boone, then, reached St. Louis ; a flourishing 
trading-post at that day, but giving no promise then 
of the grandeur of its present position, or its future 
destiny. He was welcomed by his son, Daniel M., 
and immediately he looked around and selected a 
place for his residence in the Femme Osage district. 
Of this district the Spanish authorities constituted 
him the Commander. He was thus made both a 
military and civil officer. The date of his commis- 
sion was July 11th, 1800 — some years after 
coming into the country, and after thousands had 
flocked in to people a land that proffered such inde- 
scribable attractions. Those who came, too, knew 
the character of Daniel Boone full well. 

As an act of gratitude to the great Pioneer of 
Kentucky for lending his influence in attracting such 
an emigration to the regions of Upper Louisiana, 
Delorne marked out a tract of land consisting of 
eight thousand five hundred acres for him, and made 
him a present of it ; this land lay on the north side 
of the Missouri River. Now it seemed as if his 
wrongs were all set right once more ; the cheating 
from which he had suffered in the matter of his 
Kentucky claims was generally recompensed here in 



244 DANIEL BOONE. 

these rich lands on the Missouri. But there was a 
fatality attending all his transactions, so far as their 
pecuniary value was concerned. It was necessary 
for him to go down to New Orleans and there com- 
plete his title, after the regular forms of Spanish 
law ; but this was too much trouble for Boone, and 
he omitted it altogether. So that when the whole 
of the immense country known then by the name of 
Louisiana came into the possession of the United 
States — as he certainly foresaw it would, in time — 
he found himself again divested of a title to his 
lands, but tliis time by his own fault alone. He 
had doubtless counted on his title's being all the 
safer when the territory became the property of the 
government of his native country ; but past experi- 
ence should have taught him a lesson, which it seems 
it did not. And if he was careless of these matters 
himself, his friends should have taken them in hand 
on his behalf. Yet it is to be remembered that it 
was a' very long journey to New Orleans from St. 
Louis, in those days, and that the Mississippi was not 
traversed with palaces of steamers as now. Boone 
was not thirty years old, either ; he was sixty, and 
there was a difference. 

Life was simple and peaceful all around him, 
while he held the office to which he was appointed. 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 245 

No law-suits interfered with friendships, but what- 
ever cases were brought to the attention of tlie Pio- 
neer he was able readily to adjudicate. There were 
no thefts and no robberies. Men dwelt together 
after the primitive modes. There was no war, nor 
rumor of war. The atmosphere was that of peace. 
For these five years of his life, at least, he had 
known what it is to be undisturbed and happy. 

Louisiana passed into the possession of France, in 
the year 1800. Napoleon the First knew what an 
immense tract it comprised, but he also knew that 
the glory of the Empire lay not in the New World. 
He conceived the grand design of making it over into 
the hands of the United States, and it became ours 
by regular purchase in 1803. This purchase was 
one of the most magnificent events in the adminis- 
tration of Jefierson, or, indeed, in the history of the 
country. Napoleon had a deep laid design in tliis 
transaction, too ; he wished to augment the power 
of the young Eepublic of the West, that she miglit 
the sooner rival the pretensions, as she does to-day, 
of the great nation from which she had not long 
before made herself free. So that Boone became a 
citizen again of his native country, having thus 
belonged in his life to four different nations — Great 

Britain, Spain, France, and the United States. 
210 



246 DAIflEL BOONE. 

For a long time lie occupied himself with the 
hunt. After the upper country became ours, he went 
to live with his son, and busied himself almost all 
the time in that way. He had no great success at 
first, hut he did not despair. After years of resolute 
endeavor, he succeeded in collecting peltry enough 
to bring him in what money he wanted, and, taking 
his hardly-acquired wealth about his person, he 
started off for Kentucky to pay his debts ! He had 
left certain obligations behind him there. When his 
own land claims were in dispute, he was obliged to 
hire lawyers, as well as borrow from friends ; there 
were also debts of honor resting upon him, such as 
those included in the amounts entrusted to him by 
neighbors and acquaintances, when he went from 
Kentucky to Eichmond to buy lands for them and 
was robbed by the way. All these debts he deter- 
mined to pay ; and he paid them. He hunted up 
every man to whom he owed a dollar, asked him how 
much he owed him, took his own word only for the 
amount, and discharged the obligation. He kept no 
particular account himself, and he was willing to 
trust to the honesty of others. It was, unfortunately, 
owing to this very same spirit of his that he lost his 
claims to his own possessions. 

Kentucky was greatly changed in his eyes, since 



A NEW HOME IN THE FAR WEST. 247 

he saw it last. He could scarcely realize that there 
he was the original discoverer, and that the feet of 
white men never trod its virgin soil before his own. 
It seemed like a dream to him now, to think that his 
own wife and daughters were the first white women 
who stood on the hanks of the beautiful Kentucky 
lliver, and that so little while ago ! But silently 
and unheralded he came back into the State, to dis- 
charge a sacred duty ; and in the same way he went 
out of it again. 

Keturning to Missouri, he employed himself 
with his life-long pastime of hunting. That was a 
second nature to him. He came back after paying 
his debts, with but half a dollar about him ; but he 
felt rich in the consciousness of having fully dis- 
charged his duty. He owed no man anything. 
Could all say the same by him ? 

He was now hard upon seventy. Age began to 
make its slow but sure impress upon him. Yet he 
sallied forth without company, self-reliant and strong 
as ever. He skimmed the Missouri in his light 
canoe, and followed the beaver to their most secret 
domains. He camped out in the forest as he always 
had done, trusting to his rifle and his sagacity still. 
Sometimes he fell in with the Indian, but he knew 
how to evade his treacherous grasp. He studied the 



248 DANIEL BOONE. 

same arts by which to protect himself now, that he 
ever did. If he was surprised, he could offer as 
tough a resistance as the savage, single-handed, 
would care to cope with himself. 

There is something not merely poetic and pictur- 
esque, but noble and grand, in the contemplation of 
the way of life followed by such a man, with such a 
weight of years upon him. It was a truly fit close 
to such a career. His rifle was his earliest friend, 
and it remained his latest. The woods drew him 
forth from home when he was a young man, and 
they offered him ten thousand sweet consolations, now 
that he was old, and those whom he liad benefitted 
had forgotten him. If he was unquiet among men, 
nature ever offered him drcams of repose and peace. 
When he felt inclined to repine at the hardness of 
fortune, it was all forgotten as he lay his silvered 
head, like the mere child he still was, in the lap of 
the mother of us all. 



249 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 

IN pursuing his hunting, in these days, Boone 
traversed a wide extent of territory. He 
went as far even as the mouth of the Kansas 
Eiver — a far off country then, but brought very 
near to us by the events of these later times. At 
the time he strolled off to this distance, a character- 
istic incident occurred, which ought not to be left 
out of any biography of such a man. We prefer 
to give it as we find it in the faithful sketch written 
by Peck, in Sparks' Series. He says : 

*' He took pack-horses, and went to the country 
on the Osage River, taking for a camp-keeper, a 
negro boy, about twelve or fourteen years of age. 
Soon after preparing his camp and laying in his 
supplies for the winter, he was taken sick, and lay 
a long time in camp. The horses were hobbled out 
on the range. After a period of stormy weather, 
there came a pleasant and delightful day, and 
Boone felt able to walk out. With his staff (for he 
was quite feeble), he took the boy to the summit of 
a small eminence, and marked out the ground in 



250 DANIEL BOONE. 

shape and size of a grave, and then gave the follow- 
ing directions. He instructed the boy, in case of 
his death, to wash and lay his body straight, 
wrapped up in one of the cleanest blankets. He 
was then to construct a kind of shovel, and with 
that instrument, and the hatchet, to dig a grave 
exactly as he had marked it out. He was then to 
drag the body to the place, and put it in the grave, 
which he was directed to cover up, putting posts at 
the head and foot. Poles were to be placed around 
and above the surface ; the trees to be marked, so 
that it could be easily found by his friends ; the 
horses were to be caught, the blankets and skins 
gathered up ; with some special instructions about 
the old rifle, and various messages to his family. 
All these directions were given, as the boy after- 
wards declared, with entire calmness, and as if he 
was giving instructions about ordinary business. 
He soon recovered, broke up his camp, and returned 
homeward, without the usual signs of a winter's 
hunt.'' 

The decision was rendered in the United States 
Courts, in the winter of 1810, that Boone's title to 
the great grant of land by the Spanish Governor, 
was not a good one, and he learned once again in 
his life that he was beggared. It was a hard blow 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 251 

for the old Hunter, especially at his time of life. 
He had now reached his seventy-fifth year. 

This was the time, if ever, it appeared to him, 
when he might with justice address a word to Ken- 
tucky. He sent a memorial to her Legislature, 
therefore, asking that body to see that some sort of 
justice be done him by Congress. The Legislature 
listened, and caused his petition to be heard 
properly on the floor of the United States Senate. 
The language of the Dreamble of the Kentucky 
resolution was this : 

" The Legislature of Kentucky, taking into view 
the many eminent services rendered by Col. Boone 
in exploring and settling the western country, from 
which great advantages have resulted, not only to 
this State but to his country in general, and that, 
from circumstances over which he had no control, 
he is now reduced to poverty — not having, so far 
appears, an acre of land out of the vast territory 
he has been a great instrument in peopling — be- 
lieving, also, that it is as unjust as it is impolitic 
that useful enterprise and eminent services should 
go unrewarded by a government where merit con- 
fers the only distinction, and having sufficient rea- 
son to believe that a grant of ten thousand acres of 
land, which he claims in Upper Louisiana, would 



252 DANIEL BOONE. 

liave been confirmed by the Spanish Government, 
bad not said territory passed by cession into the 
hands of the General Government, — Therefore, 
Eesolved,'' etc. 

It was eminently proper that he should petition 
Kentucky to aid him in memorializing Congress on 
his behalf, and it must have been an act of genuine 
satisfaction to the members of her Legislature that 
they had it in their power to serve the cause of the 
noble old Pioneer. 

His request, owing to the influence of Kentucky 
in the national councils, was listened to with pro- 
found respect, and a grant was made to him of the 
public lands ; but not to the extent to which the 
Spanish Governor had rewarded him. He would 
have been fflad to obtain, on account of his chil- 
dren at least, the original number of acres bestowed 
by Spain ; but the eight thousand five hundred were 
whittled down to eight hundred and fifty ! Con- 
gress acts in just this unaccountable way. It 
rewarded Lafayette for his services in the Ke volu- 
tion, munificently — w^hich every man is glad of ; 
but certainly Daniel Boone had performed service 
second to that of no living man on behalf of the 
nation that had now sprung into the strength of a 
joung giant among the older nations of the eartL 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 253 

It is not the policy of our government, we well 
know, to openly reward men for patriotic services ; 
yet there are petty partizans enough in politics, who 
go out of office rich in the goods of this world, 
while the solid benefactors, the brave Kevolutionary 
soldiers, and the very founders of the nation, have 
died in poverty and want, and some with scarce a 
place to lay their heads. 

The request of the Pioneer was granted, in the 
form we have stated, in the month of December, 
1813 ; but she who had devoted a long life to his 
varying fortunes, had reared him children, had 
shared his trials, and solaced him in the midst of his 
troubles, she — the devoted wife and tender mother 
— had just passed away ! She died in the month 
of March previous, at the good old age of seventy- 
six. Her eyes were closed, not amid the scenes of 
her childhood and youth, but far away in a strange 
land, with few ties to bind her to earth, and her 
spirit waiting and ready to be loosed. Her husband 
himself selected the spot for her burial. It was on 
the top of a ridge, which commanded a view of the 
Missouri Kiver, and a place of surpassing beauty. 
There all was peace. He showed his friends in what 
way he desired to be buried beside her, and left her 
remains to their long repose. As we before remarked, 
22 



254 DANIEL BOONE. 

Boone was in his seventy-ninth year when he hecame 
the recipient of the land given him by Congress ; and 
so near four-score as that, generally is out of the 
reach of wordly interests. The eye had begun to 
grow dim, and the hand to be feeble. Still all the 
native vigor and freshness of the noble spirit was 
left. It was not much that his country did for 
him at so advanced an age, but he said that what he 
got would be something to leave to those whom he 
loved. He wandered out still to indulge in his 
favorite pursuit of hunting, carrying his trusty rifle 
feebly, and being careful not to venture far away 
from home. The days glided by pleasantly for him, 
and the seasons rolled over his head with all their 
wonted delights. He rejoiced as keenly in the 
exhilaration of the open air as ever, preferring the 
free range of the forest and the prairie to the close 
quarters of the cabin fireside. 

Indeed, there is no telling either the nature or the 
depth of the secret enjoyment that was his, in this 
placid evening of his life. Keflection was busy within 
him. Memory brushed up all the olden pictures 
of forest and river, of the hunt and the Indian war- 
fare, and created the past newly for him again. K 
ever man had enough in his thoughts to keep those 
thoughts busily employed, Boone was that man. 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 255 

His life was full of adventure and incident. His 
days were alive and swarming with fresh-coming 
experiences. He could plunge into the past at any 
moment, and find that he had entered a new realm. 
While he sat on the fallen trees of the forest, and 
suffered memory to run hack with loosened rein, 
there was no need that he should make any drafts 
on the present in order to fill his heart with satisfac- 
tion and contentment. And in such a state of mind, 
he passed these slow-moving days. 

Later than this, he removed to the house of his 
son-in-law, Callaway. He had married his daugh- 
ter Jemima — one of the three girls who were run 
away with by the Indians from Boonesborough, and 
afterwards rescued by her father. With Mr. Calla- 
way's family he lived the remainder of his days. It 
could not be said of him, however, as of so many 
men who pass on from four-score to ninety years, 
that he was troublesome or querulous ; on the con- 
trary, he was cheerful and contented to the last. It 
was while in this family that Mr. Peck saw him, in 
the course of the year 1818. 

He describes him as having the appearance of a 
highly respectable old man, clad in homespun, neat 
in his attire and habits, in a little room of his own, 
which he kept in perfect order, with a clear eye and 



256 DANIEL BOONE. 

a very fair and pleasant countenance, a higli and 
bold forehead, a marked nose, expressing decisive- 
ness of character, and the sleek and silvered hair one 
would expect to find on a head so ripe in years as 
his. He was not, then, a rough or hrutal man in 
his aspect, but wore all the evidences of refinement 
and real dignity. He carved powder-horns, by way 
of amusement, and toyed with his faithful old rifle 
as if it were a child ; and in truth, it had kept him 
long and pleasant company. Even then — which 
was two years before his death — he was in the habit 
of strolling off, though not unattended, to indulge in 
a. little hunting, eager to keep up the sport of his 
boyhood to the last of his happy days. 

For several years he had kept his cofiin constantly 
under the bunk in which he slept, and used to sit and 
regard it with a melancholy satisfaction. He thought 
of the chosen companion who had gone before him, 
and of the bliss of the coveted reunion. And he felt 
already at rest, in knowing where his body was going 
to lie when it had finished its earthly service. That 
ridge overlooking the Missouri was never out of his 
mind. She whom he loved was sleeping there now. 
The winds of heaven would visit them freely in that 
resting-place, and the people of a vast continent 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. ^257 

would come to see where tlie Pioneer and his faith- 
ful wife lay. 

All sorts of stories were told of him while these 
last days wore on ; and, now and then, he would hear 
of some of them himself One was to this effect : 
it was reported that, while standing at a salt lick 
and watching for the approach of deer, he had raised 
his rifle to his shoulder to take a sight at one as he 
came down towards him ; the old man died in the 
excitement of the moment, and was found with the 
rifle still at his shoulder, in the very act of taking 
aim ! This story got into the newspapers, and 
finally reached his own ears. He smiled pleasantly 
when he heard of it, and only answered, — " I never 
would helieve that, if I told it myself. My eyesight 
is too poor to hunt." 

Stories of his misanthrophy were just as reliahle 
as this ; likewise those of his moving farther away 
into the wilderness, when he found neighbors crowd- 
ing up, and giving as the reason that he was too 
much crowded. All such tales were the mere imag- 
inings of those who had been taught to regard the 
name itself of Daniel Boone almost as a myth, and 
had no foundation in fact whatever. 

The famous American portrait painter, Mr. Ches- 
ter Harding, paid him a visit in the last year of his 
22* 



258. DANIEL BOONE. 

life. This was in 1820 — a memorable year 
otherwise in the history of the Union. Mr. Harding 
found him, when he first entered his apartment, 
reclining in his bunk and roasting a piece of veni- 
son, which he was holding out on the end of a ram- 
rod to the blaze of the fire opposite ! It was an 
occupation quite befitting his age and character. 

The old Hunter walked out with Mr. Harding 
every day while he remained there, and appeared as 
cheerful as usual. His recollection of recent occur- 
rences was not at all ready, or accurate ; but he 
would talk of what happened twenty, thirty, forty, 
and fifty years ago with all the warmth and eager- 
ness of a boy. His heart was all in the past. 
There was nothing in that which he had forgotten. 
He never tired of telling over and over his old 
experiences with the Indians, or the tales of his 
skirmishes with the wild beasts of the forest. 

It was while engaged in this sort of pastime, that 
Mr. Harding was able to catch that true expression 
of his spirit which he has fortunately handed down 
to future generations. This, we believe, was the 
only portrait of the man ever painted. It now 
adorns one of the legislative halls of Kentucky. 

Just after the picture was completed, the old man 
was taken ill, but his constitution was too good to 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. • 259 

yield to the first assault of any sickness. He after- 
wards, however, made a little visit to the family of 
his son, and, while there, was taken down again, 
and yielded up his life. He hreathed his last on 
the 26th of September, 1820, having reached the ripe 
old age of eighty-six. His end was peaceful and 
calm. His simple soul took its flight serenely, 
trusting in that God who had tenderly watched over 
him from the beginning. It was well that he who 
had gone through such varied scenes — of strife, 
and toil, and trial — should fall asleep at last in the 
bosom of his family. 

His body was buried, according to his own request, 
by the side of her who had been faithful to him 
through life, on the ridge overlooking the beautiful 
river, the spot his own eyes had selected. 

In this solitude, the Pioneer and his wife lay side 
by side for twenty-five years. The world in that 
time came and crowded thickly around them. 
Steamers ploughed the river, freighted with the 
wealth of a young nation. The sights and sounds 
of a new life began to abound on every side. 

At the expiration of this time, the Legislature of 
Kentucky sent a delegation to Missouri, who were 
entrusted with the sacred charge of bringing back 
the remains of the great Hunter and his wife to the 



260 DANIEL BOONE. 

soil of the State that now delighted to honor him. 
Kentucky did not forget the services of Daniel 
Boone, and she determined that his bones should he 
kept nowhere but in her own soil. She resolved 
that he should repose, by the side of his devoted 
wife still, in the cemetery at Frankfort, where visi- 
tors from all parts of the country and the world 
might behold the resting-place of the great Pioneer. 
The removal of the bodies was effected with little 
trouble and perfect safety. 

The ceremonies of the re-interment took place at 
Frankfort, on the 15th day of September, 1845. 
All Kentucky crowded to witness the memorable 
sight. It was something for a man to say even 
that he had seen the case containing the remains of 
Daniel Boone. He, the Pioneer, had come back 
among them again, having burst the cerements 
of the grave ! Once more he walked the earth ! 
Thousands and tens of thousands felt their hearts 
thrill with such a joy as they never before experi- 
enced, when these canonized bones were carried 
along in their presence. The most distinguished of 
Kentuckj^'s sons were the pall-bearers on this occa- 
sion, who thus sincerely attested the deep reverence 
his great name had inspired in their hearts. 

John J. Crittenden spoke the funeral oration, 



LAST DAYS OF THE HUNTER. 261 

which was eloquent and worthy of the occasion; 
himself the son of an early emigrant to Kentucky, 
and one of the foremost of American men. The fune- 
ral pageant was imposing in the extreme. No such 
gathering had before been seen in the limits of 
gallant Kentucky. 

A fitting close to the story of this man of pure 
life, simple habits, unsullied honesty, and heroic 
endeavor. No shadow rests on the fame of Daniel 
Boone. He was all that could be asked as a father 
and a husband, and in all the relations he held 
toward others he was an exemplar. The day shone 
clear through his character. Nature does not pro- 
duce such a man in every generation, or even in 
every century ; when she does, it is with a specific 
purpose, which is always accomplished. 

The ages will pronounce the name of Daniel 
Boone with pride. He was a true man. He was 
direct and self-reliant. There was no falsehood 
about his nature, and no need of any. He did 
great deeds as other men would do smaller ones, 
because the power lay in him to do them, and he 
could not help it. Though he never made any pro- 
fession of religion before the public, it cannot be 
denied that he was the most thoroughly religious 
man that ever lived. It could not well be otherwise, 



262 DANIEL BOONE. 

for he drank in his inspiration direct from the fount 
of Nature, and that is ever as clean and pure as 
the waters that rill from the mountain. His sense 
of justice was ever untainted. No wrong could be 
laid at his door, and he passed away with only the 
blessings of the race upon his silvered head. 
Let his name be honored forever. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces 
Neutralizing Agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: ^ j , ^ "iggg 




PRESERVATION TECHN0L0C3IES. LI 

1 1 Thnmson Park Drive 



